
Class 








Book 










PRESENTED 


BY 



SERMONS 



D'S 



By Eev. HEHBY M. BACON, 



PASTOR OF THE SECOND PHE5B Y TEHI i N ;Wl'FXH, 
COVINGTON', INDIANA. 



AUBURN: 

W J L L J A M J . M S E S*. 

1851. 



:3\/23o 

,233 



Entered according to A<:t of in the veai 

By II. M. BACON, 

In the District Court of the District of Indiana. 



^~£ff 7 ' 'ft 9 



THESE SERMONS 

ARE AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 

TO THE 

B|ijS)ft|i a()9 Setie^oi^ Cortgi-egqfioifi, 

TO WHOM THEY WERE PREACHED 

BY THETR GRATEFUL 

PASTOR. 



PREFACE. 



jNo one reads a Preface : yet not to write one, would seem 
to argue stolid indifference, or overweening confidence, as to 
the success of his efforts, neither of which the author feels. 
He has, besides, a word or two to say for himself, to the reader 
of this book. If any are so impatient that they cannot sto- 
to talk with him a moment, he cannot help it. 

This book may be said to be printed, rather than published • 
for it is not supposed that it will fall into the hands of many 
who are not in some way acquainted with the author. It 
would be idle to weary any one with the reasons which have 
induced him thus to venture out from his retirement, in the 
very beginning, as it were, of his ministry. He cannot plead 
the novel and interesting apology, that he has been " urged/ 7 
or even ''solicited." He has taken the responsibility, and 
must abide by the consequences. 

There are some things in this little volume, of which some 
who read it, perhaps many, may disapprove. The views here 
promulgated have not been rashly adopted. With a scanty 
Library, and few counsellors, the author has studied out for 
himself many of the results presented in these Discourses. 
He is satisfied that they are correct, and his prayer is, that if 
they are not, one effect of their publication may be his own 
conviction of his error. Criticism is neither deprecated 
nor defied. The author is too well aware of the many 



VI PREFACE. 

faults that even a careless eye can discover in these 
Sermons, not to know that he "who reads to criticise" will 
find plenty of employment. He does not think such captious 
fault-finding can ruffle the surface of his equanimity. At the 
same time, he will be grateful to those who will point out 
any errors, and thus help him to correct them. 

These Sermons were preached in the early part of the 
summer of this year, andthis will explain some allusions to 
passing events, which have been left unchanged. The author 
had intended thoroughly to revise the whole, especially for 
the purpose of leaving out repetitions of the same thought 
in different sermons, but his health has not permitted him to 
accomplish the task. These repetitions are, the author 
thinks, appropriate to sermons actually preached to a congre- 
gation 5 for the business of the minister is to press upon his 
hearers, Sabbath after Sabbath, the same great truths. As 
they occur in this book, they may serve to remind the reader 
that he is to puj himself in the position of a hearer. 

If these Discourses shall lead any one to prize more highly 
the prayer our Lord taught us, the author will feel rewarded 
for his labor. 

Covington, October, 1851. 



CONTENTS. 



SERMON I. 
Our Father which art in Heaven, 9 

SERMON II. 
Hallowed be thy name, 24 

SERMON III. 
Thy kingdom come, 48 

SERMON IV. 
Thy will be done in earth, as it is done in heaven,.... 76 

SERMON V. 
Give us this day our daily bread, 93 

SERMON VI. 
And forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors,... . 119 

SERMON VII. 
And lead us not into temptation, 140 

SERMON VIII. 
Rut deliver us from evil, 1G3 

SERMOM IX. 
For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory, 

forever, ................ « 192 



SERMON I. 



Our Father which art in Heaven. — Matt. 6 : 9. 

I begin to day the fulfillment of a long cher- 
ished purpose. Years ago, the beauty and ten- 
derness, the simplicity and comprehension of the 
Lord's Prayer attracted my attention, and they 
have grown upon me with every successive read- 
ing and repetition of it. Long before I had 
preached, or even sketched a sermon, I had made 
up my mind to devote a Course of Lectures to the 
exposition of this touching and instructive por- 
tion of our Savior's teachings. Many things 
have occurred from time to time to put off the 
accomplishment of this determination, till at last 
it seemed to be only a beautiful mirage, deluding 
and mocking me. I thank God that I have lived 
to begin this undertaking. May he spare us all 
to witness its conclusion. I shall be fully rewar- 
ded for my labor, if the views I present shall in- 
duce any mother, though irreligious herself, to 
teach her child this prayer, which our Lord 
taught us ; if they shall lead any youth who has 
outgrown the teachings of pious parents, to re- 
peat again these words of Him who spake as nev- 

B 



10 SERMONS ON 

er man spake ; or if, finally, (and certainly, I 
may hope for this reward,) they shall enable any 
disciple of Christ to cry more heartily and believ- 
ingly, " Abba Father." 

No more appropriate expression could have 
been chosen as the introduction to this prayer 
than the words, " Our Father." The Savior 
teaches us here at the outset the feelings with 
which we should approach God. We must draw 
nigh unto him as children to a father, for doubt- 
less he is our Father. But let us analyze filial af- 
fection, and see what emotions enter into it as in- 
dispensable elements. First and foremost among 
these I place reverence. I know this virtue has 
nearly grown obsolete in our day. Generally, 
nay, almost universally, the child is the center 
around which the obsequious parents revolve, and 
to which the whole household gravitates. There 
is a sickly sentimentaiism much in vogue in our 
times that would annihilate fear. I acknowledge 
that " 'tis better far to rule by love than fear," 
but I maintain that a love in which there is no 
fear of oifending, and no dread of just severity 
in consequence of offending, is a love that is not 
worth the having. 

Reverence is an essential element of filial af- 
fection, and when it is wanting, that affection 
cannot exist in its highest and purest state. 

The character of Him whom we call Our Fa- 



II 

ther in Heaven, is eminently calculated to inspire 
this reverence. He is no such weak, indifferent 
being as some would imagine Him, He thun- 
der eth in the heavens He looketh on the earth, 
and it trembleth. His face is against them that 
do evil. Who would not fear this great and ter- 
rible God % I will not enlarge here upon this 
point, as our Savior has given us, in the very first 
petition of this prayer, an express and emphatic 
caution to beware of irreverence. 

The second constituent of the feeling which 
children should cherish toward their parents, is 
love. Reverence and love, these are the prismat- 
ic rays, either of which alone is beautiful, but 
which when blended, as they always should be, il- 
lumine a home with clear and heavenly light. 

Inspire your child with reverence and love for 
you, and you have done more for your mutual 
happiness, and for his success, than if you should 
give him the title deed to all the gold mines of 
California. 

But let us turn our thoughts from our fa- 
thers, according to the flesh, to the Father 
of our spirits. We are to come to him with a 
trusting affection, and oh how much there is in 
his character to warrant and invite this : God is 
love. u Like as a father pitieth his children, so 
the Lord pitieth them that fear him." And it is 
the peculiar characteristic and crowning glory of 



12 SERMONS ON 

the Christian religion, that it does thus reveal 
G-od as the object of child-like love. The Jew 
knew that God was awful : the Hindoo knows that 
God is to be dreaded ; and even 

" The poor Indian, whose untutored mind 
Sees God in clouds and hears him in the wind/ 7 

trembles before him. But it is the Christian 
into whose heart God sends forth his Spirit, cry- 
ing Abba Father. Not that the Jews had no idea 
of God ? s paternal character. But this was by 
no means so clear and prominent as it is in the 
new dispensation. It is only since grace and 
truth have come by Jesus Christ, that we can 
boldly say, " Our Father who art in Heaven." 

I have seen somewhere an allegory like this : A 
heathen knelt down to pray — a Jew passing by in- 
quired, what do you call the Deity % He replied, 
the Destroyer ; and asked in turn, what do you call 
him ? The Almighty, was the answer. A Chris- 
tian drew near and said, we call him Father ; 
then they all knelt down together, saying, " Our 
Father who art in Heaven." And oh, what better 
bond of union could there be ? Come, gay, 
thoughtless devotee of pleasure, come hard, heart- 
less man of the world, come slave of Mammon, 
let us kneel down together and say, " Our Father 
who art in Heaven." Why should you be afraid ? 
You are not : ah, why should you be ashamed to 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 13 

join your fellow men in asking your common 
Father for what you all need ? 

And this brings me to the second lesson which 
"our Savior teaches us in this beginning of the 
Lord's prayer — the duty of social worship. Our 
Master here lays hold of, and appropriates to the 
service of religion, that great principle of asso- 
ciated action, the power of which men are just 
beginning to appreciate. Men undertake now to 
accomplish nothing by themselves ; we must have 
a society for every thing. It has been heralded 
as one of the great discoveries of our time, that 
so much can be achieved in this way. But the 
Church of Christ was founded ages ago upon this 
basis, and is still held together by this bond. — 
Christians are formed into a society to effect a 
common purpose. To strengthen their own in- 
terest and to awaken that of others, they are to 
meet frequently and regularly. Masonry and 
Odd-Fellowship, with every phase and imitation 
of them, have borrowed this great principle from 
the Church. And in this we see the truth of the 
saying, that our Lord knew what was in man. — 
There is, too, in this adaptation of the Church to 
human nature, a convincing proof that they are 
from the same great Author. 

But some one, willing to justify himself, and 
fighting against reason and revelation will say, 
M I do not need to join this society, to enter into 



14 SERMONS ON 

this communion. I can be as good a Christian 
out of the Church as in it." No, my friend, you 
cannct. You may be a Christian out of the 
Church : you may be a better Christian than 
some in it : but you cannot be as good a one out 
of it as you would be in it. Your child may be 
a scholar by studying at home : he may be a bet- 
ter scholar than some who go to school ; but he 
cannot be as good a scholar, as with the same ap- 
plication he would have been, if he had been 
brought, under the care of a competent instruc- 
tor, into daily contact and rivalry with those 
pursuing the same studies. It is not simply be- 
cause it is cheaper and just as easy for one teach- 
er to instruct twenty children as five, that we 
gather our youth into schools : but there is great 
benefit in association, in friendly strifes, in the 
action and re-action of one mind upon another. 
It may be that the affiliated states of this great 
confederacy would be prosperous and powerful, 
if sundered and left each to stand alone ; but we 
all know that they could not be as safe as they 
now are, bound together in one happy union. — 
In union there is strength : and you must not say 
you can be as good a Christian out of the Church 
as in it. ' 

But there are some who say, " I can worship 
Grod at home as well as in the church. It will 
do me more good to read an excellent sermon at 



THE LORD ? S PRAYER. 15 

home than to listen to an ordinary one in the 
church." I have even found professors of reli- 
gion, who would thus undervalue that public 
worship which was one of the great purposes for 
which the Church was instituted. Granting that 
you can, (let me say to any such who may happen 
to hear me,) derive more instruction from read- 
ing at home alone, our Savior teaches us in this 
Introduction to the Lord's prayer, the necessity 
of social, in distinction from individual, worship. 
You must meet with your fellow men and say, 
tl Our Father who art in Heaven." You have 
social "blessings which can be properly acknowl- 
edged only in a social capacity ; and I deny that 
you can worship God as well by yourself as with 
your fellow men. This is the very mistake of 
monks and nuns. You forget, or else this thing 
you are willingly ignorant of, that there is no 
one of the faculties and feelings of man, that 
can attain to maturity and perfection, except 
amid the intercourse and the influence of society* 
This is a fundamental law of our being, which 
can neither be violated nor evaded ; and religion is 
subject to it. If you would have submission, 
reverence, love, faith, all the feelings that are 
called into exercise in the worship of God, pos- 
sess and overwhelm your soul, you must meet 
with the great congregation,, 

u Where sorrow flows from eye to eye, 

And \®y from heart to heart." 



16 , SERMONS ON 

If you would have the great truths- of the gos- 
pel sink deep into your heart, you must see the 
tear stealing down the cheek of the sorrowing 
penitent, you must watch the light of hope as it 
breaks over the beclouded face of some despair- 
ing sinner. Heaven is no such secluded solitude 
as you would seek. John saw there a multitude 
whom no man could number, and their voice was 
as the sound of many waters. If you would 
anticipate heaven, you must go with the multi- 
tude who keep holy day. And in saying this, I 
underrate or discourage private worship, no more 
than our Savior did in teaching us to say, Our 
Father. In the beginning of this chapter he 
tells us to go into our closets and shut to our 
doors, and pray to our Father who seeth in se- 
cret; thus plainly teaching us the necessity of 
secret prayer. Here he shows, indirectly it is 
true, but none the less plainly, that we are to en- 
gage in social worship. And this is the order of 
nature ; secret prayer is the first in the order of 
time and of importance. Every one should pre- 
pare in the closet for the public worship of God. 
Without this preparation, it is almost impossible 
to render acceptable worship. Certainly I should 
have more charity for one who, with mistaken 
views, neglected the public services of God's 
house, than for one who deserted his closet. Yet 
nothing can take the place of public, social wor- 



17 

ship. It exerts upon the heart of the believer 
an important and a peculiar influence ; its influ- 
ence upon society, too, is incalculable and indis- 
pensable. Deprive this community of all the 
public services of religion, and it would, slowly 
perhaps, but surely slide back into the ignorance 
and cruelty of savage life. The preaching of 
the gospel, the voice of prayer and praise, re- 
strain men who never hear them ; and who shall 
estimate their influence over the worldly-minded 
and irreligious, who habitually frequent the courts 
of the Lord's house % To the mere philanthro- 
pist, our Sabbath gatherings should have a deep 
interest. Here, as the rich and the poor meet to- 
gether, will they not feel that the Lord is the 
maker of them both ? 

And this leads me to observe that in this in- 
troduction, our Lord teaches us the common 
brotherhood of the race. The plain and repeat- 
ed inculcation of this truth, is one of the distin- 
guished and distinguishing peculiarities of the 
Christian religion. The religion of Paganism, 
both ancient and modern, were state and nation- 
al, designed for a single race, making little or no 
effort to extend their influence beyond certain 
limits. The same is true, though perhaps not to 
so great an extent, of the Jewish religion. But 
when our Savior came, he boldly told his disci- 
ples that their field was the world, He sent them 



13 SERMONS ON 

out into all the world, to preach the gospel to ev- 
ery creature ; and they did so, to the Greek and 
to the Jew, to the Barbarian and the Scythian, 
to the bond and the free. And they showed how 
all social distinctions melted away in the 
glance of the Lord. They preached with 
equal plainness and fervor to the jailer, in their 
dungeon, and to Agrippa in the audience cham- 
ber of Kings ; to the barbarous people of the is- 
land of Melita, and to them of Caesar's household. 
Christianity, where it has not degenerated into 
a miserable caricature, still teaches that G-od has 
made of one blood all nations of men. It recog- 
nizes no inferior race, so feeble, so debased, as to 
be out of the circle of its sympathies. Wherev- 
er the Christian finds a human body wrapped 
round a human soul, he finds a brother with whom 
he can kneel down and say — " Our Father in 
Heaven." It is upon this broad principle that 
the structure of Foreign Missions is built, and 
all the pert witticisms of modern philosophers 
and " reformers" cannot shake it. How puny do 
their achievements appear, compared with the 
world-embracing charities of that army of the 
Lord of Hosts, which goes not with the war of t&&A~ 
artillery, or the gleam of the bayonet, but with 
the Bible and the Sabbath School, to wipe away 
the tears and heal the wounds of the whole fami- 
ly of man. 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 19 

But our Savior does not here teach us to sym- 
pathize with and care only for the stranger with 
whom we have no dealings, though he surely in- 
cludes all such among the children of our Father 
in Heaven. But this brotherly feeling is to con- 
trol our daily life. He who prays after this 
manner cannot be scornful or selfish. Come, 
proud, haughty professor of religion, come, envi- 
ous, malignant disciple of Christ, (0, strange con- 
tradiction in terms,) kneel down in the morning, 
and say, " Our Father." Can you despise or 
slight your fellow men, because they are not 
dressed according to your taste ? Can you talk 
bitterly and reproachfully of them, because they 
do not pay as much attention to you, and are not 
as intimate with you as you desire : not remem- 
bering that in estimating your own merits, you 
are apt to err in your own favor ? Cold, heartless, 
avaricious man, kneel down at night by the side 
of that bed on which you expect the Lord to 
keep you while you sleep, and as you say, "Our 
Father who art in Heaven," think of the poor 
whose faces you have ground, or the widow from 
whom you have taken her children's bread. Se- 
vere, harsh, unrelenting judge of the wayward 
and the heedless, remember that this erring one 
is your brother or your sister. I do not hesitate 
to say that no one can imbibe the spirit of this 
beginning of the Lord's prayer, without being, in 



20 SERMONS ON 

the best and highest sense of the word, a philan- 
thropist. Let the* principle taught here pervade 
all hearts, and it would revolutionize society. 
Trickery and deceit, harshness and oppression, 
would be banished from the earth. 

But if any where this feeling should govern, it 
is in the intercourse of fellow Christians, both of 
the same and of different denominations. Doubt- 
less, God is our Father, in a peculiar sense. We 
are fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the 
household of God. We are heirs of God, and 
joint heirs with Christ. Shall we bite and devour 
one another? Shall we be jealous and sus- 
picious of each other? Let there be no strife 
between us, for we are brethren. Let us love as 
brethren ; then shall the world behold how good 
and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell to- 
gether in unity. And nothing will help us to do 
this more than worshiping together, saying in uni- 
son, "Our Father who art in heaven." I disap- 
prove entirely of the conduct of some professors 
of religion, who never go to Church when they 
do not have preaching in their own house, or at 
least by their own minister. Thus keeping your- 
self aloof from, and ignorant of your fellow Chris- 
tians, how can you learn to love them ? I have 
read, somewhere, of a man who went out with his 
gun in a valley. Amid the gray fog of the early 
dawn, he saw something move before him, which 



THE LORD'S PRAYER, 21 

he took to be a wild beast. As he raised his gun 
to fire, it occurred to him that it would be well 
to be more sure of its character. As he climbed 
the mountain, and drew nearer, the light increas- 
ing, the vapor melted away, and he saw it was a 
man. And when he came close up to him, he 
found it was his brother. 

So you, my fellow Christian, while you stay 
down amid the mists of bigotry and prejudice, 
may shrink away from some fancied monster ; 
but climb higher up the mount of God : let the 
light of the Sun of Righteousness pour its radi- 
ance around and into your heart. You shall find 
he whom you dreaded is a man, a man of like 
passions with yourself; and when you come to 
see him as he is, you shall clasp him to your 
heart, a brother beloved. And nothing, I say 
again, will help us to cultivate such a feeling, 
more than worshiping together. We shall then 
feel that we have one Lord, one faith, one bap- 
tism, for we are all baptized into Christ. "We do 
all eat of the same spiritual meat, and do all 
drink of the same spiritual drink. We shall feel, 
also, how many and intimate are the ties that 
bind us together — having a common Father, lov- 
ing and trusting the same Savior, heirs of the 
same heavenly inheritance, pilgrims to the same 
dear home. 

And this brings me to the final lesson of this 



22 SERMONS ON 

introduction, — that heaven is our home. "We 
should therefore set onr affections in heaven, 
where Christ sitteth, at the right hand of G od. 
Worldly-minded professor of religion, hasting to 
be rich, so engrossed by the pursuit of wealth 
that you find no time to turn aside into your clos- 
et, or to drop into the prayer-meeting ; overtask- 
ing yourself so much that the Sabbath finds you 
too weary to really enjoy its delightful services ; 
thoughts of gain stealing on amid its quiet hours, 
to cast their dark, forbidding shadow o'er the 

" Sweet fields beyond the swelling flood/' 

what an ungrateful, or, at least, heedless child 
you are. 

Why do you so seldom turn to your home high 
up in heaven % Why do you not lay up your 
treasure there? Ah, where your treasure is, 
your heart will be also. On the other hand, my 
brother, are you poor, compelled to toil for daily 
bread? Is your home scantily furnished, and 
your food coarse, while the proud and haughty 
around you are clothed in purple and fine linen, 
and fare sumptuously every day ? Oh, my broth- 
er, this is but a way- side inn, where we tarry for 
a night. In our Father's house are many man- 
sions. One who loves us better than we love 
ourselves, has gone before to prepare a place for 
us. 



THE LORD'S PRAYER, 2b 

A home in heaven, what a joyful thought, as 
the poor man toils in his weary lot ! Have you 
deeper sorrows than poverty or suffering can 
bring, some hidden wound healed over outwardly, 
yet festering and bleeding within : that bitterness 
which every heart knows only for itself? Lift 
up your eyes and rejoice, for your redemption 
draweth nigh. There the wicked cease from 
troubling, and the weary are at rest. 

" His own soft hand shall wipe the tears 

From every weeping eye 5 
And pains and groans, and griefs and fears, 

Shall cease eternally." 

11 Oh, who would live alway, away from his God, 
Awa/ from yon heaven, that blissful abode : 
Wnere the rivers of pleasure flow o'er the bright plains, 
And the ncontide of glory eternally reigns." 



SERMON II. 



Hallowed be thy name : Matt. 6 : 9. 

u Behold what manner of love the Father hath 
bestowed upon us, that we should he called the 
sons of God." The fact that God permits us to 
call him "Our Father," might well overjoy us. 
To chasten and restrain us, lest in the exube- 
rance of our gladness we should forget the awful 
majesty which invests the Divine character, our 
Lord teaches us, at the outset, to say, as our first 
petition, " Hallowed be thy name." We learn 
from this that it is of the first importance that, 
in all our approaches to God, while we come with 
the confidence and simplicity of children, we are 
always to draw nigh, even in the full assurance of 
our faith, a with reverence and Godly fear." 

"We are taught here, in the first place, that all 
our direct addresses to God, which might be 
strictly called the use of his name, should be per- 
vaded by awful solemnity. There is, in the 
prayers of some really good men, at times, a blas- 
phemous familiarity, which is absolutely shocking. 
Such persons, in their mistaken zeal to be like 
children coming to a father, forget how holy and 



the lord's prayer. 25 

reverend is the name of God, and they assume, in 
their prayers, the free and easy style of the bar- 
room and the theatre. This is not only to be 
regretted, but must be strongly condemned and 
strenuously resisted. The application to God of 
endearing epithets, of a familiar and common 
character, addressing him as if he were altogether 
such an one as ourselves, is so abhorrent to rea- 
son as well as Kevelation, that I need not enlarge 
upon it here. It is sufficient to call your atten- 
tion to it, and thus put you upon your guard 
against a sad mistake, into which some good men 
have fallen. 

But there is an evil akin to this, to which we 
are all exposed, and I think it quite important to 
refer to it. It is a mechanical, thoughtless repe- 
tition of God's name in our prayers. This is a 
taking the name of God in vain, which we should 
be careful to avoid. That we often repeat the 
name of God in our devotions, when it is unne- 
cessary and out of place, may seem a slight mat- 
ter, not worthy to be spoken of here ; but every- 
thing connected with the character and glory of 
God is of the utmost importance. Especially 
should everything about our worship show a deep 
and absorbing reverence for the Lord our God. 
While this is true of all worship, it is peculiarly 
so of our public services ; for these are designed, 
as has been remarked, to have, and do haven 
e 



26 SERMONS ON 

great influence upon the irreligious. We should 
take pains, therefore, to have the public worship 
of God impress even the thoughtless listener 
with at least a belief in our holy fear of the high 
and lofty One, if that emotion may not steal im- 
perceptibly into their souls. 

And this naturally leads me to remark, that 
this petition, " Hallowed be thy name," is by no 
means to be restricted to any such narrow, literal 
interpretation as would make it refer only to the 
use of God's name. There are, at times, large 
portions of our prayers in which we do not need 
to make formal mention of the name of God ; and 
we ought, as has already been remarked, to avoid 
all unnecessary repetition of it : but even those 
portions are to be pervaded by a subdued ear- 
nestness, that will show to God, and to our fellow 
men, that we do not forget that He is in heaven, 
and we are upon the earth. Every intelligent 
reader of Scripture knows, that God's name is 
often put for his character, — the full assemblage 
of his attributes. In teaching us thus at the very 
beginning to pray — " Hallowed be thy name," 
our Lord shows us that humility and reverence 
should pervade and control all our prayers, and 
every part of them. All attempts at display, 
whether by ambitious ornament or learned dis- 
course, are here sadly out of place. Do we not 
sometimes find, among ministers and those who 



27 

are often called upon to lead in public prayer, a 
disposition to impress upon their fellow worship- 
ers an idea of their happy use of language, the 
depth of their humility, or the correctness of 
their theology, rather than an absorbing reverence 
for God, and a consciousness of guilt and want ? 
Such a spirit, in the performance of public worship, 
defeats the object of its institution, for it can 
never produce its proper effect upon the devout 
or the undevout, except when it is, and is felt to 
be, a simple, childlike pouring out of our hearts 
before God. Once allow people to suppose that 
you are praying to them, and you might as well 
drop even the form of addressing God. 

You will often see a disposition to criticise the 
devotional efforts of Christians, which is equally 
at war with the teachings of this petition, and 
the spirit of true worship. I have repeatedly 
heard persons, when going home from prayer- 
meeting, thoughtlessly — I had almost said pro- 
fanely, — comparing the prayers of different indi- 
viduals. Such persons would do well to remem- 
ber that they are perhaps not very good judges 
as to who makes the best prayer. Often, in the 
eye of God, the fluent, eloquent man, is guilty of 
solemn mockery, while he who utters only a few, 
incoherent words, pressed out of a broken, con- 
trite heart, goes down to his house justified, rath- 
er than the other. I hope none of you, my 



28 SERMONS ON 

Christian brethren, will indulge in this foolish, 
unchristian criticism, and that none of you will 
be troubled or frightened by it. Do not be kept 
from the prayer-meeting and its duties, because 
you cannot deliver to your fellow- Christians a 
polished oration. I, for one, would much rather 
that, overwhelmed by a sense of your own vile- 
ness and littleness in the sight of God, you should 
not so much as lift up your eyes unto heaven, 
and should utter only a few, simple words, than 
that you should stand up with undisturbed com- 
posure, and voluble self-complacence, to pour 
out your fine-turned phrases. I do not disparage 
ease and fluency in prayer. They are desirable, 
and we should endeavor to acquire them, while 
we should carefully avoid an incoherent, frag- 
mentary method of prayer. But do not seek the 
honor that comes from man ; and do not be kept 
from praying to God by a fear, that you will not 
receive honor of man. 

I have intimated that ease and propriety in 
prayer is a matter of study and acquisition. I 
need not stop to prove this, since we all acknowl- 
edge that the days of direct inspiration have long 
since passed, and that whatever excellence we ob- 
tain, is the result of labor and practice. Instead, 
then, of absenting yourself from the prayer- 
meeting, or sitting down in contented indolence 
and carelessness, because you have not what is 



29 

called the "gift of public pra}rer," you ought 
rather to cultivate a devotional spirit, in your 
closet and family circle, assured that out of the 
abundance of the heart the mouth will speak. 
Study the prayers of inspired men, as given 
to us in the word of God. Especially, endeav- 
or to conform your prayers to that one which 
we are now considering, given to us express- 
ly as a model, — for he says, " after this manner 
pray ye," — by Him who spake as never man 
spake. You would also derive great assistance 
from the works of some uninspired Christians, 
such as Henry, Watts, Scott and Jay, who have 
either written for our instruction, or have given 
us forms adapted to our various wants and pecu- 
liarities. I must be permitted to add, here, that 
I know of no better uninspired model, of the sol- 
emn tenderness and brief simplicity which should 
characterize our prayers, than the Liturgy of the 
Protestant Episcopal Church. No one can real- 
ly engage in public worship, as conducted in these 
forms, without having his heart subdued to the 
same tone of affectionate reverence. This may 
seem positively heretical to some, who have been 
accustomed to look upon the use of forms in wor- 
ship as dangerous, and indeed wicked. But this 
ground is utterly untenable. There is no Church 
that is entirely without forms. In our present 
condition, it would be impossible to do without 



30 SERMONS ON 

them. That is to say, worship, and public wor- 
ship especially, must be conducted upon some 
plan, according to some regular method. Our 
forms are simple, and variable within wide limits, 
at the pleasure of the officiating minister. The 
forms of our Episcopal brethren are more elabo- 
rate and invariable. The clergyman cannot alter, 
— indeed, it is doubtful whether he can omit, any 
part of the prescribed ritual. It is our form, our 
method of worship, to use extemporary prayers, 
while it is theirs to repeat prayers composed be- 
forehand for the occasion. The question between 
them and us is one of expediency, whether their 
mode of conducting public worship is preferable 
to ours. We do not think it sinful for them to 
use written forms of prayer ; but we hold that ex- 
temporary prayer is best calculated to cultivate a 
devotional spirit, and we protest especially against 
being confined to an invariable phraseology. 

It is not my duty, now, to enter into the dis- 
cussion of that subject ; if it were, I think I could 
show that our views are correct. One thing I 
would suggest to any one, who may dislike my 
commending the Liturgy of the Episcopal Church, 
as a model in some respects. Such forms of 
prayer, when we are not tied to them, and do not 
cling to them with superstitious reverence, may 
be of great use. He who cannot pray without 
them, in his family, for instance 5 had better em- 



21 

ploy them. A book of prayers, a veritable 
" Prayer-Book," conipi f ed by 180 ministers of 
Scotland, has been published by a Presbyterian 
house, and warmly commended by Presbyterian 
periodicals ; and I have no doubt that he who 
is slow of speech, and has little of the gift 
of prayer, would derive great assistance from 
studying and occasionally employing such forms. 
It is for this reason that I commend to you the 
Episcopal Liturgy: especially the forms for 
Morning and Evening prayer — not because I 
approve of every thing in it. There are expres- 
sions in the baptismal and ordination services, 
which every Protestant must regret as unfor- 
tunate, to say the least; and in the ordinary 
Sabbath services, the general tenor of which is 
so unexceptionable, and to me so lovely and im- 
pressive, the declaration of absolution has always 
grated harshly on my ear. But the individual 
prayers themselves are, I say again, among the 
best of uninspired models— the finest specimens 
of what a prayer should be. There is such an 
entire absence of display, or straining after effect; 
such simple grandeur, such entire forgetfulness 
of ourselves breathes in every line, that it is re- 
freshing to turn to' them in these days, when 
pride and bombast seem to be invading the holi- 
est of holies, when we intercede with God. I do 



33 BEEAI0N3 ON 

not think you could read o-r hear them in a prop- 
er frame of inind, without being benefited, 

But some of you may say, this has not been 
your experience. You have occasionally attend- 
ed the Episcopal Church, but the services always 
seemed dull and unmeaning. The sermon may 
have made an impression upon you, but the wor- 
ship never seemed to do you any good. The rea- 
son of this is, that you did not conform to their 
modes of worship. You did not endeavor to en- 
ter into the spirit of the occasion, and to actually 
worship with them. This you should have done, 
just as when you go to the Methodist Church, 
you are to worship according to their forms. And 
you are not to suppose that, because the forms 
are different from those you are accustomed to, 
that therefore it is not worship, and that you are 
not bound to regard it as such. You have no 
more right to treat the worship of Episcopalians 
with contempt or indifference, because they read 
or recite their prayers, than they have to despise 
ours, because we pray without the use of such 
forms. When either of you come to a place of 
worship as a critic or a spectator, you do not hal- 
low the name of our Father in heaven as we here 
confess that we should, and 'pray that we may. 
These forms will do you good, if you use them 
lawfully ; and perhaps some of you, who shrink 
from them with a horror as superstitious as the 



the lord's prayer. 33 

reverence with which others cling to them, would 
% be the very ones to be most benefited by their 
occasional use. 

There is probably no part of the worship of 
God in which there is so little hallowing of the 
name of God, as in singing his praise. How 
often do persons, even in the sanctuary, join in 
these solemn ascriptions of devout homage to 
the King of glory, with the same flippant care- 
lessness with which they would sing a love-ditty 
or a negro melody. Indeed, you will sometimes 
hear them, when engaged in worldly business or 
pleasure, sing with wild hilarity, or even uproar- 
ious mirth, such sacred words as, 

" Before Jehovah's awful throne, " 
or, 

" Alas and did my Savior bleed I" 

It chills me with horror to hear any one thus 
sporting with these awful themes. God is ex- 
pressly declared by inspiration itself to be fear- 
ful in praises, and we should no more trifle with 
these songs of adoration, than with the prayers 
that are offered to him. I know that the de- 
partment of worship we are now considering has 
its peculiarities. It is associated with music, an 
art which requires study, and which has attrac- 
tions of its own, entirely independent of the de- 
vout emotion to be expressed. I am far from 



34 SERMONS ON 

condemning practice, preparative for conducting 
the praise of God in the public assembly. Study- 
is as necessary for this as for preaching ; and di- 
rect inspiration is no more to be relied upon in 
the one case than in the other. There are, however, 
some things in relation to this part of worship, 
which I think it important and appropriate to 
mention in this connection. In the first place, I 
am from principle opposed to the use of hymns 
and sacred songs in teaching music. This will 
seem to some a superstitious strictness about lit- 
tle matters, like the unwillingness which many 
feel, and I confess myself one of them, to have 
political meetings, concerts, and similar gather- 
ings held in a church. But nothicg is trivial 
which concerns the cultivation of reverence for 
our Heavenly Father. And the practice in question 
has such a natural and necessary tendency to make 
the name and attributes of God seem common and 
worthless, that I do not see how the religious 
have tolerated it so long. No one at all sensi- 
tive as to the employment of words, endeared as 
many of these are to the pious heart, can visit a 
singing school in full blast, without being grieved 
at the nonchalant manner in which they are sung, 
and the style in which their execution is criti- 
cised. Train up a child to such a use of the 
name of God and his praises, and it is almost im- 
possible to teach him properly to reverence them. 



the lord's prayer. 35 

I trust the time is not far distant, when a thor- 
ough reform will be effected on this point. 

It has been intimated that practice is necessa- 
ry to prepare for public worship. The use of sa- 
cred words is of course allowable at such times, 
for the end in view can often be attained in no 
other way. But you should be very cautious in 
their employment. Never forget the solemnity of 
the words you use, and the awful grandeur of the 
Being to whom they are addressed. While I 
would not insist, and perhaps ought not to, that 
in such meetings taere should be the sobriety of 
worship, yet I must say that all frivolity and 
buffoonery are intolerable and abominable to God 
and man. Scenes are sometimes witnessed in 
such gatherings as these, that are shocking in the 
extreme. Let every Christian, to whom God has 
given the priceless gift of song, set himself against 
these enormities. Let him remember that the 
music of earth, weak and faint though it be, is 
akin to that of Heaven ; and let him imagine how 
the romp and the jester would appear amid 
that a multitude whom no man can number."— 
Especially when actually engaged in worship, 
should we be careful to hallow the name of God. 
Let your soul be full of devout reverence. Be 
more anxious to worship the Lord in the beauty 
of holiness, than to win applause or to escape the 
chagrin of failure. And let me add here, that 



36 SERMONS C>\ 

ridicule or contempt, or anything resembling 
them, are just as inappropriate to mistakes made 
in singing the praise of God, as they are, and are 
acknowledged to be, to mistakes made in prayer. 
We are not here as mere spectators of a musical 
entertainment, critics of an artistic performance. 
He who would thus degrade the public worship 
of God, knows nothing of the awful sublimity 
which attaches itself to the meanest conventicle, 
the scantiest assemblage. " Where two or three 
are gathered together in my name, there am I in 
the midst of them," said He vAo fills immensity 
with his presence, and whose throne is in the 
heaven of heavens. We are here before God? 
all praying, while but one voice is heard, all 
praising, while but a few sing. " Would God 
that all the Lord's people were prophets, and that 
the Lord would put his Spirit upon them." 

This petition teaches us to avoid, and we pray 
in it that we may avoid every thing like contempt or 
neglect of any part of the worship of God. Talking 
laughing, reading, lounging, and gazing about, are, 
as I have often declared, notorious offences against 
the simplest rules of good breeding. You may 
know when you see a person indulging in any of 
these, that he has been very poorly instructed, or 
has paid but little attention to what he was 
taught. But I arraign these practices now upon 
a charge of much greater enormity. They are 



THE LORDS PRAYER. 



insults to the infinite majesty of God. They are 
slights, put not upon the preacher, but upon the 
gospel which he preaches. " He that despiseth 
you, despiseth me," said He who commanded us to 
go and preach the gospel. In other places, and 
when engaged in other labors, I can endure the 
whispering and other disturbances of the ill-bred 
and the silly, but when I come to the Sanctuary, 
clothed with the authority of an ambassador for 
God, I should be false to my solemn vows, and to 
every feeling of my heart, did I not demand for 
the message of the Lord the profound silence of 
a thoughtful attention. He who hallows the 
name of our Father in heaven, will be sure to 
accord it. 

There is a way of showing disrespect for the 
worship of God which I must notice briefly. It 
is true, and I am happy to bear this testimony, 
we as a congregation *are seldom interrupted in 
this way, but the practice in question is common 
in places, and it is well to have correct views in 
regard to it. He who stalks out of the house 
of God with an air of defiance or contempt du- 
ring the progress of worship, declares as plain- 
ly as if he asserted it in words, that these servi- 
ces are a mere idle spectacle, which he can leave 
whenever he is weary. Need I say that this 
view is erroneous ? The worship of God is a sol- 
emn duty, which every one of us is bound to 



33 SERMONS ON 

perforin, and he who disturbs the pious worshiper, 
is not only guilty of a gross breach of politeness, 
but he turns his back upon the God in whose 
hands his breath is, and whose are all his ways. 
Another form of disrespect common among us. I 
only allude to. There are many persons who 
are unwilling to kneel down during family prayer. 
This may seem a slight matter, but it is impor- 
tant as a token of the person's state of mind. — 
He is ashamed to have his fellow men know that 
he humbles himself before God ; yet what posture 
more proper for him to assume? If he had any 
sense of the terrible majesty of God and his own 
weakness, if he hallowed the name of our Fath- 
er in heaven as he should, would he refuse this 
feeble tribute of reverence? 

The disposition for which we pray in this pe- 
tition will throw a halo of sacredness around ev- 
ery thing connected with the worship of God, the 
places and times in which it is performed, the 
scenes with which it is associated. Many good 
people, who would not for the world be guilty of 
any indecorous conduct during the progress of 
worship, will yet indulge in foolish, giddy con- 
versation and even laughter, before the services 
commence and after they are over. I do not be- 
lieve there should be anything sour or forbidding 
about the worship of Gcd. A word or two of 
cheerful conversation is not out of place ; but this 



THE LORD 5 S 2&AYEE. 39 

mirth seems to me almost profane, when we are 
just about to call upon God, or when the solemn 
impressions that should have been made upon us, 
have had neither time nor opportunity to be ef- 
faced. Especially does this trouble me at the 
close of worship. I can bear with those who, 
coming in with their minds all unprepared for the 
sacred scenes of the Lord's day and the Lord's 
house, their thoughts wandering like the fool's 
eyes to the ends of the earth, — I can bear with 
them, if they do not hallow the name of God 
But how can people laugh and talk so carelessly ! 
when the solemn words they have heard or ut- 
tered have hardly had time to die out of their 
ears ? I speak of this more in sorrow than in an- 
ger, for I have often been grieved in this way, 
and sometimes in this very house. There is also 
not unfrequently a haste in leaving the house of 
God which must affect the devout worshiper un- 
pleasantly. The concluding moments of service 
are dedicated to the looking up of hats, the ar- 
ranging of dresses, the opening of pew doors, and 
securing a fair start in the race from the sanctu- 
ary. All this strikes me as very unseemly. It 
appears to be saying with them of old, " what .a 
weariness is it, when will the Sabbath be over V J 
I greatly admire the custom of our Episcopal 
brethren, for all the congregation to wait de- 
voutly a moment or two before they stir from their 



40 SERMONS OH 

places. It is only a form, you will say. I grant 
it, but it is a form eminently calculated to mani- 
fest and to suggest the reverence we should al- 
ways feel and exhibit in the worship of God. 

"We have hitherto been considering only dis- 
tinct and formal acts of worship. Is the spirit 
of this petition to be limited to these? It" will 
require but little consideration to see that we here 
pray that a deep and hearty reverence for our 
Father in heaven may be breathed into every 
part of our life. What confidence can we have, 
to say nothing of God, who looks on the heart, 
in the piety of him who kneels at the altar, or 
covers his face in the sanctuary, and goes forth to 
blaspheme, or to talk lightly of God ? It must 
be evident that the perjurer, however exact he 
may be in the performance of his devotions, does 
not hallow the name of God. Upon this point, 
of course, you who are present need no instruc- 
tion. But did it ever occur to you that the man- 
ner in which oaths are commonly administered 
and taken, has little of the solemnity befitting 
such a transaction % An oath is a solemn appeal 
to the Almighty, to attest the truth of what we 
are about to utter — the faithfulness with which 
we will discharge the duties upon which we are 
about to enter. Can a man who has any proper 
sense of the majesty of "Him with whom we 
have to do," make such a declaration with the 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 41 

recklessness which is often witnessed in our courts 
of justice, and at the inauguration of officers. A 
reform in this matter is greatly needed. And 
we, my Christian friends, when called upon to 
participate in any such transaction, are the ones 
to begin it. 

It would be well if, into the lips at least of 
public speakers, and especially those who discuss 
political topics, could be instilled this spirit of 
reverence. The name of God is a favorite exple- 
tive with them ; it is always introduced wherever 
it will round a period, or produce a sensation. 
Their frequent appeals to " the Great Supreme" 
betray, through the mock solemnity with which 
they are thinly veiled, their utter indifference to 
the Lord, our God. I would as soon hear the 
profane jest and coarse blasphemy of the gambler 
and the loafer, as these devout expressions falling 
so heartless from the lips of one whose daily life 
proclaims that God is not in all his thoughts. 
Yet pious people ! they are shocked at the one, 
while they smile on the other. Have they so lit- 
tle discernment as not to perceive that these 
irreligious, and sometimes vicious men / have sto- 
len the livery of the court of heaven, if not to 
serve the devil, at least to serve themselves. I 
apprehend that the real difficulty is, that they are 
so little in the habit of hallowing the name of 
God in their own every day life, that the mere idle 



A% SERMONS ON 

use of it, if it sounds well, if it does not abso- 
lutely force itself upon them as outrageously 
blasphemous, passes unnoticed, or awakens, but 
little emotion. There is often, in the ordinary 
conversation of truly pious people, and sometimes 
even in their religious discourse, a careless way 
of speaking the name of God, against which I 
must protest. You will hear them talk, for in- 
stance, of " God's heavens," and " God's world," in 
a tone and manner which shows that they do not 
reverence him as they should, and that they have 
little idea that heaven is his throne, and the earth 
is his footstool. 

It is related of Queen Elizabeth, that she nev- 
er spoke the name of God without pausing a 
moment to show that she hallowed it, and oftener 
than otherwise she would say, " God, my Maker," 
so deeply did she seem to feel her dependence 
upon him. There are some of us, perhaps, who 
count ourselves much more pious than this haughty 
monarch, who would do well to. copy her example. 
I would not go as far as the Jews, who counted 
the word Jehovah, the proper name of God, too 
sacred to be uttered, and even when it occurred 
in reading the Scriptures, substituted another 
word in its place. But let us at all times hallow 
the name of our Father in heaven, never men- 
tioning him or any of his attributes but with be- 
coming reverence. 



the lord's prayer. 43 

Before dismissing this particular topic, I would 
call your attention to a singular circumstance 
which, in my judgment, shows a want of reve- 
rence for the name of God. Many pious people 
put this " fearful and glorious name" on a level 
with that of the devil, and such words as hell, 
damnation, and the like. Now the use of such 
expressions in idle banter, or in moments of pas- 
sion, is profane and wicked. These people, who 
are so reckless in their conversation, show that 
they have no very strong conviction of the ex- 
istence of a fallen spirit who is " not less than 
archangel ruined." Nor can they have even a 
faint idea of the " indignation and wrath, tribula- 
tion and anguish," which God will visit upon ev- 
ery soul of man that doeth evil. But this care- 
less use of such phrases is not for a moment to be 
considered as of equal guilt with the reckless and 
blasphemous mention of the name of God, and 
especially of that worthy name by the which we 
are called, the name of Jesus, at which every knee 
should bow, and every tongue confess. Let this 
latter stand alone on its own bad eminence. 

The same general principle, which I have laid 
down in regard to our use of God's name, applies 
to his word. " Thou hast magnified thy word, f > 
says the Psalmist, "above all thy name." This 
is generally understood by commentators as refer- 
ring to the promise of the Messiah. But may it 



44 SERMONS ON 

not mean also that the Bible is the clearest and 
highest revelation of his character, God has ever 
made to man ; that while some indistinct and dis- 
connected lessons might be spelled out from what 
is called the book of nature, it is only in the 
word of God, that ho who runs can read ? It 
seems to me that if u an undevout astronomer is 
mad," an undevout possessor of the Bible is much 
more so. If it is what it claims to be, the direct 
voice of God to man, it should be heard with the 
utmost reverence. Especially, my Christian 
friends, should we be careful in our treatment of 
the Scriptures, in which we think we have eternal 
life, never to quote them in jest, never speak 
of or allude to them lightly. Do not suffer this 
to be done in your presence ordinarily without 
rebuke. They are the word of the living God, 
which must not be trifled with. 

As I remarked in reference to actual worship? 
that not only prayer and praise, but every part of 
the service, and everything connected with it, 
should be instinct with reverence ; so now I 
would say, as to our every day life, that all these 
things should be spoken of and treated with due 
respect. Many, I fear a great many, professors 
of religion, have a jocose way of talking about 
the worship of God. Preaching, praying, asking 
a blessing, conversing with the thoughtless or the 
unawakened, are topics, over which they make 



the lord's prayer. 45 

merry among themselves. Indeed, I grieve to 
say, I have sometimes heard them do this with 
the ungodly and the profane. And when such 
people come to speak of the rites and forms of 
those who differ somewhat from themselves, they 
assume a sneering and contemptous tone, or at 
least they manifest a bitter and fault-finding spir- 
it. My brethren, I must publicly protest against 
this. Whatever you may think of it, I am per- 
suaded that in the eye of God it is profanity. It 
is taking the name of the Lord in vain. If a 
man really felt that reverence for God and his 
service, for which we pray in this petition, could 
he trifle with such sacred themes, as many profes- 
sedly Christian people do ? Suffer me to caution 
you especially against treating the forms of other 
Churches contemptuously. I am, for instance, 
often grieved at the coarse jokes and sneering 
words of very good people in regard to immer- 
sion. And I single this, out, because I think 
profane language in regard to it more common 
among us than in reference to any other rite. I 
know how we are provoked and irritated. I am 
aware how much they revile our practice. I 
bring against them no railing accusation, but say 
to every such reviler, u The Lord rebuke thee." 
We must remember, however, that their sin is no 
excuse for ours. Indeed, we have less reason for 
such language than they, for while they do not 



46 SERMONS ON 

admit the validity of our form, we do that of 
theirs. Let us never forget, that in administering 
immersion, they are really performing a solemn 
act of worship, an ordinance of the Lord's house, 
though in our judgment they put themselves to 
unnecessary trouble, and insist too much upon 
the mere form of the rite. And so of every oth- 
er observance of our fellow-Christians, to which 
we are not accustomed; or of which we disap- 
prove. 

But we do not simply pray for ourselves 
in this petition. As in the beginning of the 
prayer we include the whole world in its embrace, 
so here we ask God to put an end to all supersti- 
tion and idolatry ; that all false religions and all 
corruptions of the true religion may be banished 
from the earth; that the name of God may be 
one. and his praise one, from the rising of the sun 
to the going down of the same. We pray that per- 
jury, with its false lips on the word of God, and its 
murderous hand lifted to heaven, may be driven 
back into the bottomless pit from whence it came. 
We pray that no longer, as we walk the streets and 
mingle with our fellow men, shall our ears be salu- 
ted with oaths and blasphemy ; that never again may 
a creature of God stand up amid his works, 
crowned with mercy and loving kindness, to insult 
the awful Majesty of " the Great Supreme :" that 
everywhere the Church of Christ, and the ordi- 






the lord's prayer. 47 

nances thereof, maybe treated with proper respect, 
nay, be loved and enjoyed. What pious heart 
will not pray, "Hallowed be thy name." 



-" Oh may the hour soon come, 



When all false gods, false creeds, false prophets, 
Allowed in thy good pleasure for a time, 
Demolished, the great world shall be at last 
The mercy-seat of God, the heritage 
Of Christ, and the possession of the Spirit, 
The Comforter, the Wisdom. " 



SERMON III. 



Thy Kingdom Come.— Matt. 6 : 10. 

Prom the days of" the Grecian sages until now, 
men have disputed the question, " What is the 
best form of government ?" The great majority 
of the wise and good have preferred the demo- 
cratic or republican. And there are, of course, 
none of us of a contrary opinion. But there are 
certain limitations of this verdict, which we 
ought not to forget. All are not qualified to live 
under, or at least to have a voice in a republic. 
This applies, of eourse, not only to individuals, 
but to nations. Who would set up a republic 
among the Hottentots or Bushmen of South Af- 
rica ? What folly in the American Missionaries, 
or the earlier adventurers to the Sandwich Islands, 
to have dethroned the king and proclaimed a de- 
mocracy ? But now, by a long eourse of training, 
protracted through years, they are fitted for a 
republican form of government, and are now ask- 
ing admission into this great confederacy. 

A free government is, in its last analysis, self- 
government. It is no poetic or legal fiction, to 
say that in this country people govern themselves. 



the lord's prayer. 49 

They do this not merely in an indirect and meta- 
phorical way, by electing those who make and 
execute the laws, but literally, and directly, 
by voluntarily submitting to those laws. If 
they did not, how else could they be executed, 
since there is no kingly power or standing army 
to compel obedience ? And what is to hinder us 
from electing those who will connive at, or aid in 
our disobedience ? Indeed, we have seen in a sis- 
ter state, where men do not thus govern them- 
selves, but give themselves up to the violence of 
unbridled passion, that they ride triumphant over 
the prostrate laws, and defy the state and nation- 
al government. If they do this in the green 
tree, what shall be done in the dry ? If such a 
state of things can exist in a little borough, with 
the power of the state and national governments, 
and the social omnipotence of public opinion ar- 
rayed against it, what would become of us if the 
same lawless spirit pervaded the entire country ? 
Again, I say, the people do govern themselves. 

The people of France have repeatedly shown 
themselves incapable of this self-government, 
thus paving the way for those usurpations which 
have of late so often disgraced her history, 
tho.ugh by no means excusing, and far less justi- 
fying the perjury and treachery by which they 
have been accomplished. 

France, said one who knew her well, when in 



50 SERMONS ON 

tlie time of her last revolution lie heard some 
persons wishing she had a Washington — " France 
needs not a Washington, "but a people." The 
same may be said of the southern republics of 
this continent, they need a people — a people ac- 
customed to, and in the practice of self-govern- 
ment. Democratic institutions are weak and un- 
steady among them, or have been supplanted by 
despotism, not because there are no persons 
among them capable of wielding the power and 
directing the destinies of a republic, nor yet because 
there are no persons qualified to live under such 
a government ; but they are too few and far 
scattered to control the turbulent and the igno- 
rant. There are not enough of them to make a 
people. There is a populace, a rabble, to be 
bought and sold, to be coaxed and terrified ; but 
no people to govern themselves. We live quietly 
and prosperously under a republic, not because 
every man is capable of voting intelligently, and 
understanding the great questions at issue before 
the country ; not because all reverence the sacred 
majesty of the law, and submit, to it for its own 
sake. This is notoriously untrue ; nor yet be- 
cause, according to a recent doctrine, God has ta- 
ken the Sabbath-breakers and profane swearers, 
who fill the high places of our land, under his 
protection. But there is such a proportion of in- 
telligent, upright, moral men, that they over-rule 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 51 

and govern the rest. Let ignorance and passion 
gain the ascendency, and the sun of our liberty 
will go down in a sea of anarchy and blood, and . 
then despotism will not only be certain, it will 
even be desirable, as a relief from the harms of 
discord and civil war. This is no fancy sketch. It 
is the history of Rome, and to some extent of 
France. What will keep us from following in the 
same path, I may have occasion to notice before 
I close. 

We see, then, that the republican form of gov- 
ernment is not in all cases desirable. Our own 
government has recognized this principle. The 
inhabitants of the territory of Louisiana, at the 
time of its cession to the United States, were 
found to be so utterly incapable of self-govern 
ment, that the legislative authority was vested in 
a council of thirteen, appointed annually by the 
President, from among the inhabitants of the ter- 
ritory. 

In a community like the fabled republic of 
Plato, or the Utopia of Sir Thomas More, where 
all the inhabitants were endowed with unlimited 
intelligence and complete self-control ; where they 
all knew what should be done, and were all wil- 
ling to do it ; nothing bat a republic would be 
allowable, or indeed possible. And in a com- 
munity of limited intelligence, and defective 
goodness, if they are not sunk too low, we will 



O'Z SERMONS ON 

ail agree that the republican form is the best for 
their present happiness and prosperity, and for 
their elevation and development. But if even into 
Utopia itself there should come a being far more 
wise and powerful, and of such superior goodness 
that all could confide in him, ought they not to 
make him govern ? How much more should such 
blind and erring mortals, as we will all confess 
ourselves to be ? Do we not act upon this prin- 
ciple every day? We confide our highest and 
most important interests to those who give, as 
we think, evidence of superior fitness for such 
guardianship. 

After all our flourishes about the voice of 
the people being the voice of God, and "the 
sober second thoughts of the people,'' most of 
us follow, the lead of some master-mind ; thus 
endorsing the saying of a brilliant writer of 
our day, that " the true king or able man has 
a divine right to govern." But no mere man has 
a right, or should be allowed, to rule absolutely. 
Having but a limited intelligence, even if greatly 
superior to all his fellow men, he does not, and can- 
not, always know what course should be pursued. 
He needs to be aided and corrected by his fellow 
men ; and an unwillingness to Jbe thus advised, 
would be an indication of another tendency in 
human nature, which is by far the strongest ob- 
jection to the possession of uncontrolled authori- 



• THE LOFcD'3 prayer. 53 

ty by man. Power is apt to corrupt its posses- 
sor — to make him selfish and ambitious, regard- 
less of the wishes and wants of others. And if 
it does not do this, it begets in him an over- 
weening self-confidence, which is as fatal to his 
subjects as deliberate wickedness. 

" Man, proud man, 
Dressed in a little brief authority, 
Most ignorant of what he 7 s most assured, 
His glossy essence, — like an angry ape, 
Plays such fantastic tricks before high heaven, 
As make the angels weep. 77 

I would not trust the wisest and purest man 
that ever lived, with unlimited authority. There 
would always be some one among his inferiors, 
who could teach him in regard to some matters ; 
and I should greatly fear that his head would be 
turned by such a giddy elevation. 

But suppose there came among us some tall arch- 
angel, excelling in strength, his wisdom far trans- 
cending ours,his goodness unimpeachable,his power 
of resisting temptation sufficient for any emergency. 
Would it not be wise in us to give ourselves up 
to his guidance, implicitly — I had almost said, or 
at least to content ourselves with but a qualified 
veto on his actions ? Still it might be possible 
that some of his measures would be unfortunate. 
We might learn to suspect his wisdom, even if we 
did not doubt his goodness. Having tasted the 



54 SERMONS ON 

blessedness of such heavenly rule, would we not 
long to find some one of infinite, that is to say, 
unlimited wisdom, and irresistible power, whose 
goodness was equal to his intelligence and 
strength? Surely, we could confide implicitly in 
such a being. We should know that all his plans 
would be successful : that all his commands were 
for our good. If we found such a being, would 
it not be wise in us to enthrone him supreme 
monarch ? Need I ask, where can such a being 
be found ? Our Father in Heaven completely fills 
up, nay,. if I may so speak, overflows the outline 
I have sketched. " Infinite, eternal, unchangea- 
ble, in his being, wisdom, power, holiness, justice, 
goodness and truth." Why should we not all 
pray, " Thy kingdom come ?" 

Bat let us examine the matter a little more 
closely. The laws of a people are generally con- 
sidered a test of the character of the Sovereign. 
Look at the ten commandments, and for the pur- 
poses of this argument, I confine myself to the 
second table, regulating our intercourse with 
each other. Here we have all the principles of 
justice clearly and briefly enumerated. I do not 
wonder that the infidel lawyer, who began to read 
the Bible through, stopped here, crying out in 
astonishment, u Where did Moses get that law V 
How came the leader of such a rude, barbarous 
horde, for such the Israelites must have been, 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. DD 

and doubtless were, after centuries of bondage ; 
how came their leader to announce with such 
terse simplicity, the great fundamental princi- 
ples, upon which the legislation of all civilized 
nations is based ? We do not estimate aright the 
greatness of this miracle, for a miracle it was, re- 
quiring the Divine interposition, in the form 
which we call inspiration ; we do not estimate it 
properly, because we do not know, or remember, 
the real condition of the Israelites at the time of 
the Exodus. We fancy them such a people as 
we were at the Revolution. And Moses such a 
man as Washington, or Hamilton, or Jefferson. 
But they were slaves, and had been for ages, de- 
graded and corrupted, as only oppression can de- 
grade and corrupt. What should we think, if 
even now, the slaves of the South should march 
out, proclaiming and submitting to such an im- 
partial code. True, the Israelites were in remote, 
and but remote contact, it must be remembered, 
with the highest civilization then existing ; but 
it was an idolatrous civilization : how inferior to 
that to which our servile population is related. 
It cannot be denied that Moses was learned in 
all the wisdom of the Egyptians, but what was 
their knowledge compared with ours ? And espe- 
cially from it and the corrupt, despotic govern- 
ment, of which it was the support, how could he 
learn of the rights and duties of man ? But in 



56 SERMONS ON 

our fathers' veins flowed Anglo-Saxon blood. 
Hampden and St. Johns, Sidney and Russel, 
were their ancestors. Chatham and Burke were 
their cotemporaries. 1 Is it strange that the con- 
stitution formed by the pupils of such men should 
be just and impartial ? What if the slaves of 
the King of Dahomey should rise and promul- 
gate such a code as the ten commandments ? 
Yet even they might have caught some stray 
beams from the resplendent brightness of modern 
civilization. But in the case of Moses, we have 
the first, the earliest promulgation of the great 
fundamental principles of all jurisprudence. At 
the time when " God spake all these words," the 
darkness of barbarism was upon the face of the 
whole earth. Moses lived four hundred years 
before Homer, five hundred before Lycurgus, the 
founder of Sparta, and one thousand before Pla- 
to. And the succeeding ages of antiquity, so far 
from improving on him, have nothing that can 
compare with these brief but weighty commands. 
Compared with these, how cruel and blood-thirsty, 
how narrow and paltry, the code of Draco or the 
Decemviri, the institutions of Cadmus or Romu- 
lus. But they are not only the earliest, they are 
also the clearest enunciation of the great princi- 
ples of justice the world has ever had. Every 
lawyer, however scanty his reading, may know 
that the jurisprudence of every civilized nation 



the lord's prayer. 57 

under heaven, whether it be of common or civil 
law, is based upon them. Any open, serious vi- 
olation of them, " Speaking after the manner of 
men," would be adjudged a crime in every court 
-in Christendom. How came, we may well ask, 
this leader of a barbarous people, this foster-child 
of a despot, to point out so plainly those eternal 
principles of justice, which should regulate the in- 
tercourse of men ? Ah ! it was God who spake 
all these words. This much, by way of episode, 
as to the divine authority and lofty grandeur of 
the Decalogue. 

Would it not be a happy thing, if this could be 
the code of all nations ? If all mankind 

Whether those 
Whom the sun's hot light darkens, or ourselves 
Whom he treats falsely, or the northern tribes, 
Whom ceaseless snows and starry winters bleach, 

if all would settle down upon these principles of 
eternal justice, as the basis of their laws and 
usages, might we not hope for peace, peace like a 
river, and righteousness like the waves of the 
sea ? And is not the coming of such a blessed 
era worth praying for ? But there is much in 
the jurisprudence and legislation of even civilized 
and Christian nations, that conflicts with these 
commands of God. If any admiring disciple of 
Blackstone or Tribonian is inclined to doubt this, 
let us submit the matter to a simple test. The 

E 



58 SERMONS ON 

second table of the law is summed up and com- 
prehended in the second great commandment. 
" Thou shait love thy neighbor as thyself. " Are 
there not many laws on the statute books of this 
nation, claiming to be. and perhaps rightfully,- the 
most enlightened on the globe ; to have the purest 
and most equitable code ; are there not many 
laws permitting or authorizing a course of con- 
duct directly contrary to this command ? Let 
the kingdom of God fully come, let him be re- 
cognized as Sovereign, and his law as universally 
binding, and every vestige of such enactments 
would be swept away. Wrong doing and trick- 
ery, instead of being connived' at, or protected by 
the law, as it is often complained that they are, 
would be frowned upon and rebuked. Ought we 
not to pray for the coming of the time when all 
our laws shall be framed and executed in the 
spirit of the rule so well called golden : " What- 
soever ye would that others should do unto you, 
do ye even so to them V 

But human legislation, even when purest and 
wisest, is but a weak endeavor after the sanctity 
of the divine law. There are many violations of 
our rights, there are many failures in duty, 
which positive enactment cannot reach. How 
much petty lying, for instance, and slander, 
which human law could never punish, but it is 
here all forbidden : " Thou shalt not bear false 






I 



the lord's prayer. 59 

witness." The same may be said of the command, 
" Thou shalt not steal," and others.' There are 
multitudes of men whose highest standard of. 
morality is, the law of the land. If they are as 
good as that compels them to be, taking no more 
.than it allows, and doing what it permits, they 
think themselves good enough. What progress 
should we witness in peace and morality, if all 
these persons could be brought to recognize the 
law of G-ocl as the rule to which they should con- 
form, being a law unto themselves. 

One great element of the power of the law over 
men, is the certainty of its execution. It is better 
to have a mild code, and strictly enforce it, than to 
stern and vigorous enactments, but suffer them have 
to be evaded and treated with contempt. But it 
is impossible to frame human laws so as to pre- 
vent evasion. Iniquity can almost always find 
some crevice through which to creep ; 

u But it is not so above. 
There is no shuffling there 5 the action lies 
In its true nature, and we ourselves, compelled 
Even to the teeth and forehead of our faults, 
To give in evidence." 

It will not be so here, when the kingdom of God 
shall come, and his law be recognized as the rule 
of conduct. 

Human laws often operate unequally. They 
bear hard upon the innocent and the well-inten- 



60 SERMONS ON 

tioned. It is impossible to frame them in such a 
way that they cannot "be perverted by designing 
men for unjust purposes. The law of God can 
never be thus made the instrument of oppression. 
It is true and righteous altogether. The infinite 
wisdom and goodness of God will always secure 
the just and equal operation of his laws. I ask 
again, if the enthronement of such a being; as ab- 
solute Sovereign, is not an event to be desired 
and prayed for 1 

So far, I presume, I shall carry every one with 
me. It must seem desirable that all men should 
regulate their intercourse with each other by the 
great principles of justice, laid down in the latter 
part of the ten commandments, and summed up 
in the second great commandment : " Thou shalt 
love thy neighbor as thyself." But there is a 
portion of the law of God, a first and great com- 
mandment, which regards our relations to our 
Father in Heaven. There are many persons, 
perhaps there are some such here, who, while 
they feel anxious that men should keep the second, 
care little if at all whether they obey the first. 
Or, in other words, while they are anxious that 
all should be moral, they have little desire that 
any should be religious. They regard Churches 
and Sabbath Schools only as they promote moral- 
ity. If a sect or denomination only requires and 
enforces morality, no matter what false and dan- 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 61 

gerous ideas of God and our duty to him it may 

inculcate, it is good enough, and pure enough for 

them. They prize as highly, if not more so, him 

who is moral without being religious, than him 

who is moral because he is religious. It can 

hardly be expected of these persons, that they 

should pray, " Thy kingdom come," with an eye 

to such commands as, " Thou shalt love the Lord 

thy God with all thy heart :" or, " Thou shalt 

not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain." 

Yet, I think it can be shown, even on their own 

theory, that they ought to. I do not now address 

myself to my fellow Christians. We believe 

that the chief end of man is to glorify God, and 

to enjoy him forever. We hold that morality, 

as compared with religion, is but 

" The silken tassePs flaunt, 

Beside the golden corn." 

But I wish to show the mere moralist that he 
ought to be as anxious that men should love God 
and reverence him, as that they should be honest 
and industrious. For obedience to the first com- 
mandment is the strongest possible gua^ntee of 
obedience to the second. If a man is tiftily reli- 
gious, he must be moral ; "every duty to man 
becoming doubly sacred as due also to God." 
And remember that in offering up this petition, 
you do not ask that men may make a profession 
of religion, but that they may he religious. The 



62 SERMONS ON 

word of God everywhere teaches that this involves 
morality. a He who loveth not his brother, 
whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom 
he hath not seen." " See that none render evil 
for evil unto any man, but ever follow that which 
is good, both among yourselves and to all men. 
But again, religion is not only the surest, it is 
the only sure foundation for general morality. 
The religious feelings of man, his love to God, 
his reverence for God's law, his dread of God's 
displeasure, are the only holding ground in which 
his soul can anchor amid the storms of tempta- 
tion that beset him. The great truth has been 
recognized by the most profound jurists, the most 
capable administrators of government. Mr. Web- 
ster, in his address at Plymouth, used the follow- 
ing language : u Our ancestors established their 
system of government on morality and religious 
sentiment. Moral habits, they believed, cannot 
safely be trusted on any other foundation than 
religious principle. Whatever makes men good 
Christians, makes them good citizens; and at the 
end of t#o centuries, there is nothing upon which 
we can pronounce more confidentially; nothing 
of which we can express a more deep and earnest 
conviction, than of the deep and inestimable im- 
portance of that religion to man, both in regard 
to this life and that which is to come." And 
again, in his Speech on the Girard Yv 7 ill Case, he 



the lord's prayer. 63 

says : " What would be the condition of our fam- 
ilies, if religious fathers, and religious mothers 
were to teach their sons and daughters no reli- 
gious tenets till they were eighteen ? "What 
would become of their morals, their character, 
their purity of heart and life % What would be- 
come of all that now renders the social circle 
lovely and beloved ? What would become of so- 
ciety itself? How could it exist." 

Washington, in his Farewell Address, teaches us 
that same lesson : " Of all the dispositions and 
habits which lead to political prosperity," he 
says, " religion and morality are indispensable 
supports. In vain would that man claim the 
tribute of patriotism who should labor to subvert 
these great pillars of happiness, these firmest 
props of the duties of men and citizens. The 
mere politician, equally with the pious man, ought 
to respect and cherish them. And let us with 
caution indulge the supposition that morality 
can be maintained without religion. Whatever 
may be conceded to the influence of refined edu- 
cation, or minds of peculiar structure, reason 
and experience both forbid us to expect that 
national morality can prevail in exclusion of reli- 
gious principles." 

This same truth is recognized also by our na- 
tion as a nation, both in the state and general 
governments. The halls of legislation are silent, 



64 SERMONS ON 

the public offices are closed, the courts of law are 
deserted ; and this great confederacy, in form at 
least, remembers the Sabbath day, to keep it holy. 
Nay, the laws of this state, and of almost every 
other state in the union, punish Sabbath-breaking 
and profanity as offences against the peace of so- 
ciety. And they clo this, not on the ground that 
in committing these transgressions you invade 
the quiet of others, for you need not, and often 
would not, do this ; but because whatever weak- 
ens the force of religious obligations, saps the 
very foundation of public order. True, these 
laws are seldom, if ever, enforced ; nay, they are 
neglected and despised by the men who have 
made them, or have solemnly sworn to observe 
and execute them. But they stand, and long may 
they stand, the profane, Sabbath-breaking legis- 
lator's and judge's solemn condemnation of his 
own evil course. They show that the first table 
of the law is recognized in the basis of the second. 
True, it is only observance of the Sabbath, and 
reverence for God which are formally re-enacted. 
Yet this secures the principles. And I am of 
the opinion that the worship of a strange God, 
or the idolatrous worship of the one living and 
true God, would be equally at war with the spirit 
of our legislation, founded as that is upon the 
common law of England. Of one thing there 
can be no doubt. The laws of the land protect 



the lord's prayer, 65 

and encourage religion. Infidelity is tolerated. 
Atheism is tolerated. And let them be. Hea- 
thenism would be tolerated. I am not sure but 
it is in California now. But religion, and the 
Christian religion, alone is sanctioned and cher- 
ished. 

Here, then, you see that wise and enlightened 
legislators have always put a high estimate 
upon religious motives and obligations. Would 
you be wiser than they ? Would you be indiffer- 
ent to that of which they were so solicitous ? 
And let me tell you, worldly-minded, scheming, 
money-making, money-loving man, it is of great 
importance to you, that the religion which con- 
' trols the community, should be the purest possi- 
ble. The more correct its teachings as to what 
man is to believe concerning God, and what duty 
God requires of man, the more efficacious will it 
be in preserving the morality, and thus securing 
the welfare of society. Would you be pros- 
perous and happy ? Would you have all men 
share in that prosperity 1 Lift up, then, your heart 
to our Father in Heaven, and say, c( Thy kingdom 
come." 

Of all people in the world, the citizens of a re- 
public should offer this petition most earnestly. 
While religion is a great support and preservative 
of any government, it is absolutely essential to 
the bare existence of one that assumes a demo- 



66 SERMONS ON 

cratic form. We could not live in a republic 
where there was not some reverence for God and 
his laws. In the eloquent language of the in- 
structor of my youth, — K While a democracy in 
which every man should love God, and his neigh- 
bor, as himself, would be well," — nay, I hold it 
the best possible on earth, — u an infidel and athe- 
istic democracy, manifesting, as it certainly 
would, the animalism of the brute with the art 
and malignity of the fiend, would give us the most 
vivid image of hell upon earth of which we can 
conceive." There is, I fear, — and sometimes 
among Christian men too, — '* a kind of worship 
of democracy/' a fluent dogmatism about free 
institutions and manifest destiny; as if there 
was something in our mere form of government 
to preserve and perpetuate it. But a republic 
of Sabbath-breakers and debauchees cannot pros- 
per, Anglo Saxon though they be. It is not our 
war-steamers on the high seas, our foot and ar- 
tillery on the frontiers, the elocjuent orator, or 
the shrewd politician, that are the defence and 
protection of our land. Xo : the humble, pious 
mother, the faithful minister of the Gospel, these 
are the bulwarks of our freedom. 

Other men may look to other sources of strength, 
to the diffusion of knowledge, the multiplication of 
useful inventions, the increase of wealth and refine- 
ments, but to me there is no hope for us, but in 



the lord's prayer. 67 

the coming of the kingdom of God. Schools and 
colleges may rise in every quarter ; learned and 
laborious Professors may be there ; crowds of 
eager students may throng around them. We 
may have all knowledge, and understand all mys- 
teries in heaven and earth ; our barns and out- 
houses may be bursting with fullness ; railroads 
and telegraph-wires may cover the land like a 
net-work ; but if religion loses its hold upon us ; 
if we cast off fear and restrain prayer before God, 
our wealth and knowledge will only furnish us 
more abundant means of profligacy. Our gov- 
ernment, our nation, will be rotten to the very 
core, and anarchy, with its sure successor, despo- 
tism, will stand at the door. Fellow-citizen, 
whom I may not call fellow-Christian, would you 
save our common country from this awful doom % 
Pray, then, with us, c: Thy kingdom come." Help 
us to bring in that kingdom. Help us to send 
into every hamlet and habitation the Bible, the 
Sabbath-School, and the preacher ; mighty through 
God to the pulling down of the strong holds of 
sin. 

Are you a propagandist, anxious that free in- 
stitutions should absorb the Continent, sweep 
over Europe, and encircle the globe ? Then, even 
you, too, must pray, " Thy kingdom come." I 
have already shown that a republican govern- 
ment is, in its last analysis, literal self-govern- 



68 SERMONS ON 

ment. Even the few, and they are very few, 
who are naturally capable, to some extent, of this 
self-government, will be greatly assisted by '• the 
grace of God that bringeth salvation. " When a 
man is trained up to become a subject of the 
kingdom of heaven, he will be best fitted to be 
a good citizen in a free government." But, with 
the mass of men, as has been already remarked, 
there is no security. There is no basis for this 
self-government, so essential to free institutions, 
but the religion of the Bible. If, then, you would 
break every yoke, and let the oppressed go free, 
you must send this religion, with its influences 
and institutions, to every part of the world. — 
Nothing but the coming of the kingdom of God 
can destroy all earthly kingdoms, and this cer- 
tainly will. Let Christianity thoroughly pervade 
all ranks and classes, and tyranny would be im- 
possible. Then all in authority would feel that 
they were representatives, not substitutes for 
nations, and 

u That to rule in slavery and error, 

For the mere ends of personal pomp and power, 
Is Buch a sin as doth deserve a hell 
To its self sole." 

And a nation of godly men could not be en- 
slaved. They would call no man master, for one 
is their master, even Christ. The Son would 
make them free, and they would be free indeed, 



the lord's prayer. 69 

with the liberty of the sons of God. And if not 
thus made free, they must be slaves, the slaves 
of low desires ; " slaves to a horde of petty ty- 
rants," military chieftains, demagogues, time- 
serving politicians, political soldiery of fortune, 
" stating, with ordinary oaths, their love to every 
new position." Nations should learn, and they 
are learning, that 

a It is not kings 
Nor priests they need fear, so much as themselves ; 
That if they keep but true to themselves, and pure, 
Sober, enlightened, godly — mortal men 
Become impassable as air, one great 
And indestructible substance as the sea." 

I do not say that, wherever Christianity pre- 
vails, it will immediately or necessarily produce 
revolution, and dethrone monarchs. The process 
will be gradual, and it is best that it should. The 
forms of royalty may to some extent remain, long- 
after the people really exercise the sovereign 
power. The passage to entire self-government, 
in form as well as in fact, may be peaceful, and 
perhaps even imperceptible. But when the hour 
comes for that change, the people will be ready 
for it, and eventually it will come. This is illus- 
trated in the case of the Sandwich Islands. For 
a long time, the king has had but nominal power, 
and now they, who, thirty years ago, were the 
barbarous slaves of a cruel despot, as barbarous 
as themselves, are asking admittance into our 



70 SERMONS ON 

confederacy. Who has done this ? Philosophers 
and orators, theorizing and declaiming about pop- 
ular sovereignty ? No, indeed : a handful of 
ministers of the cross, whom orators and philoso- 
phers have been laughing to scorn. Lo ! " what 
hath God wrought !' - 

The same process is going on in Great Britain. 
True, they have a queen, but she rides in her 
carriage amid admiring and applauding thousands, 
to open Parliament, with as little real power over 
the destinies of England and of Europe, as the 
boy prince at her side, the heir apparent to the 
throne. The people govern. Public opinion is 
heard and respected. No administration could 
stand there twenty-four hours against the oppo- 
sition of the nation. It cannot be denied that 
there are great abuses there, and glaring inequali- 
ties, but they are constantly attacked by many 
sober, enlightened, godly men. They are being 
alleviated, and I hope and believe will be ulti- 
mately removed, till at last no traces shall re- 
main, of oppressive and arbitrary distinctions in 
society. Every humane man, indeed, every man 
who is not dyed in red republicanism, must wish 
that this change might come by the voluntary 
renunciation and sacrifice of the royal family and 
nobility. Who could wish to see anarchy and 
civil war running riot over that fair land, 



71 

" Refinement's chosen seat, 
Art's trophied dwelling, learning's green retreat V 

Who would not rather see king, queen and . 
lords, driven by no dire necessity, but led by 
their love to God and their fellow-men, willingly 
resigning their place and power. I am not with- 
out hope that Christianity will yet present us 
with this grand spectacle. But if this change 
must come, as the consequence of a revolution, 
and I think in some form or other it will come, 
the crisis will be comparatively brief and peace- 
ful. There will at least be no reign of terror, 
nothing of that wild intoxication, that blood- 
thirsty anarchy, which disgraced France. They 
are better fitted now for free institutions than 
any nation on the globe, except our own; and 
when the proper time comes, they will take their 
place among the republics of the world, with the 
calmness and firmness of Christian men. And as 
the kingdom of God comes, as Christianity finds 
its way deeper and deeper into the hearts of men, 
the process will go on. Fetter after fetter will 
be broken, slave after slave will join the anthem of 
the free, 

" Till nation after nation, taught the strain, 
Earth rolls the rapturous hosannah round." 

If, then, you love liberty and your fellow-men, 
though you are a republican, though you are a 
radical, you must pray, " Thy kingdom come," 



72 SERMONS ON 

that princes and prelates and popes may be noth- 
ing, and God almighty may be all in all. 

My Christian friends, what infinite motives 
urge us to pray this prayer, earnestly and un- 
ceasingly. While the great majority of our fel- 
low-men are sending after Christ, the Immanuel, 
God with us, and saying " "We will not have this 
man to reign over us;" we are his subjects, his 
soldiers, looking for and hasting unto the coming 
of God, our Savior. To advance the interests, 
and to secure the triumph of his kingdom, we are 
united together as a Church. For this purpose 
you have built this house ; for this purpose I 
stand here Sabbath after Sabbath ; to this pur- 
pose I have devoted my life. To accomplish it, 
you spend cheerfully, and indeed gladly, as I hope 
and believe, your time and money ; nay, more — 
you labor in your worldly business, in your stores 
and your shops, cheerfully, that you may do some- 
thing for him who does so much for you. To 
hasten the coming of the kingdom, we labor in 
the reforms of the day. Other men may aim at 
other ends ; the increase of physical comfort and 
social well-being ; but the mark of the prize of our 
high calling, is the coming of the kingdom of 
God. Any religion that makes men industrious, 
intelligent and peaceful, may satisfy the philan- 
thropist and the republican, but nothing can fill 
the compass of our hopes and prayers, but the 



the lord's prayer. 73 

coming of the Son of man, "a second time, without 
sin, unto salvation." Why should we not pray 
for the realization of our fondest wishes ? 

" Oh that the Son 
Might come again. There should be no more war, 
No more want j no more sickness 5 with a touch 
He shall cure all diseases, and with a word all sin." 

There is yet another reason why we should 
pray, " Thy kingdom come." Every pious heart 
must feel oppressed with a painful consciousness 
that the kingdom of God has not yet come. It 
has not yet fully come in our hearts. We are 
often rebellious, and always forgetful subjects ; 
and the world lieth in wickedness, or, as it might 
be translated, under the power of the evil one. 
The prince of the power of the air rules the na- 
tions. Even in Christian lands, what pride and 
oppression, what malignity and deceit, what prac- 
tical atheism; and oh! how full are the dark 
places of the earth of the habitations of cruelty. 
Who can overcome this opposition ? None but 
God. We have this treasure in earthen vessels, 
that the excellency of the power may be of God, 
and not of man. Well, then, in our utter help- 
lessness, may we cry to our Father in heaven, 
" Thy kingdom come;" and blessed be God, that 
kingdom shall come. The mountain of the house 
of the Lord shall be established in the top of the 
mountains, and it shall be exalted above the hills, 
and all nations shall flow unto it. 



74 SERMONS ON 

u The day shall yet appear, 
When the might with the right and the truth shall be } 

And come what there may, to stand in the way, 
That day the world shall see." 

Whether our nation, " heir of all the ages fore- 
most in file of time," with such pre-eminent facili- 
ties and opportunities for forwarding this king- 
dom, shall aid in this great work, we cannot be 
sure. If she is false to her solemn trust, if bribe- 
ry and deceit and oppression rule, if she is a 
Christian nation only in name, she is lost. — 
"Thou art weighed in the balances, and art found 
wanting," will be written on her walls, as truly as 
on those of tyrannous, luxurious Babylon of old. 
But if, as we hope and pray, she holds fast, and 
does not deny the name of Christ, every thing 
teaches us*to believe she will have much to do in 
bringing in the latter-day glory. Then do we be- 
lieve, to quote again the language of the Gamaliel 
at whose feet I was brought up, " there will be in 
our ship of state, as we believe there, always has 
been, one who, though he may seem for a time to 
be asleep in the hinder part of the vessel, will 
yet come when the winds are loudest and the 
waves are highest, and say, i Peace, be still.' " 

But should we, which may God forbid, reject the 
counsel of God against ourselves, his kingdom 
will come. Whatever may become of our nation, 
yea, of our sect or party in the Church, the ark 



the lord's prayer. 75 

of God will ride triumphant over every billow, 
The kingdoms of this world shall become the 
kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ. 

Yes, my brother, however dark and discoura- 
ging the prospect may seem, relax none of your 
efforts, cease not your importunate prayers ; nay, 
rather, double your diligence. The kingdom of 
Grod shall come. It may come quickly. This 
tempestuous state of things at present may be 
simply 

" The waking of a sea 
Before a calm, that rocks itself to rest." 

Or it may be, as I am inclined to believe, that 
the wars and rumors of wars which disquiet the 
whole earth, are the foreshadowings of the great 
and final contest between truth and error, between 
Grod and the great enemy of Grod and man. — 
We may fall in the midst of the battle. The 
youngest disciple of Christ who hears me, may 
die amid the gloom and darkness of this appa- 
rently uncertain conflict ; but he whose right it 
is, shall reign, and we, whether in the body or 
out of the body, shall swell with rapture that 
song of grateful homage : " We give thee thanks, 
Lord God almighty, that thou hast taken to thy- 
self thy great power, and hast reigned." 



SERMON IV. 



Thy will be done in earth, as it is done in heaven. 

Matt. 6: 10. 

Thes petition is the complement, the counter- 
part of the preceding one. In the former we 
pray that God's kingdom may come ; in the latter, 
that men may be obedient subjects of that king- 
dom. The one without the other would be invo- 
king upon ourselves the direst possible curse ; for 
if we should see clearly and constantly our obli- 
gation to obey God, and yet not obey him, how 
bitter must be our remorse. The reason why 
men live so contentedly in disobedience to their 
Heavenly Father, is that they are almost all in- 
sensible, while none are fully alive to his kingly 
authority; and one cause of this deadness is the 
fact that "judgment against an evil work is not 
executed speedily. Judgment for a long time 
lingereth, and damnation slumbereth." But, as was 
remarked in discussing that subject, page 59, when 
the king'dom of God shall come, there will be no 
more of the law's delay. Every transgression 
will promptly secure its due recompense and re- 
ward. Men will, on this, as well as on other ac- 



the lord's prayer. 77 

counts, be fully aware and unceasingly conscious 
of their allegiance to God, and there will there- 
fore be an end, necessarily, of the pleasure of sin, 
which they now enjoy for a season. 

This, I believe, will be the condition of the 
finally impenitent. All the ignorance and stupid- 
ity, the blindness and hardness of heart, which 
keep men at ease in their wickedness here, will be 
removed. Every bleared eye will be cleansed, 
every torpid conscience will be awakened. The 
glorious attributes of God will be revealed to them 
with overpowering distinctness, and the whole 
creation will have neither nook nor corner where 
they can hide themselves from this display of his 
majesty. They will feel their obligation to love 
and obey their Heavenly Father, not only as they 
do not now feel it, but with a force and strength 
of which they can now form no conception. Yet 
they will not love and serve him. They will see, 
with anguish and agony, the guilt of every sin, 
but will still persist in sin; as the drunkard, 
even here, feels the folly and shame of his bond- 
age to appetite, yet will not, cannot break away. 
If, then, we would not have this hell upon earth, 
when we pray — " thy kingdom come," we must at 
the same time ask that the will of God may be 
done on earth as it is done in heaven. 

The most obvious lesson to be derived from 
this petition is the duty of being contented with 



78 SERMONS ON 

the allotments of Providence. Most Christians, 
in their use of this prayer, employ this petition 
in no other sense but as expressing their acqui- 
escence in God's purposes respecting them. This 
is undoubtedly correct, so far as it goes. We do 
here submit our wills, even in our most importu- 
nate requests, to the will of God. The spirit of 
this petition should be in every prayer, though it 
is to be feared that this disposition is not so uni- 
form an element of our prayers, especially when 
they are ardent and sincere, as it ought to be. 
Our desires after spiritual good are generally so 
faint and languid, that we are seldom troubled 
with fears and inquietude, lest the feeble, formal 
prayers we offer, should be disregarded. But 
when we come to ask for temporal blessings, or 
even think of our dependence on the providence 
of God for them, how apt we are to have a rebell- 
ious, or at least a repining or unquiet spirit. 
And sometimes, too, when our hearts are burden- 
ed with the thought of the multitudes around us, 
casting off fear and restraining prayer ; or, when 
grieved and heart-broken at the sight of some 
dear friend, a husband, a wife, or a child, without 
God, and of course without hope in the world ; 
in the bitterness of our souls we are tempted to 
complain of God ; or, when hearing of powerful 
revivals elsewhere, while all is cold and dead 
among us ; or, when seeing a fair prospect of 



the lord's prayer. 79 

growth in the Church suddenly blasted by some 
unpropitious circumstance, some sudden turn in 
the tide of events, do we not murmur that we 
alone are left desolate ? 

My brethren, we are always to cherish the spir- 
it of this petition in our efforts, as well as in our 
prayers. In our labors and sufferings, we are al- 
ways to say, " thy will be done ;" and we are not 
to reserve this feeling for great occasions and 
severe trials. In the petty vocations of every 
day, in the constantly recurring routine of life's 
dull duties, this spirit may, and should be mani- 
fested. He who taught us this prayer, is himself 
our example in regard to this. In the hour of 
his extremest agony and peril, he said : "0, my 
Father, if this cup may not pass away from me 
except I drink it, thy will be done." The Lord 
grant that we may all be baptized with the same 
spirit. 

That we pray in this petition for such a dispo- 
sition, appears upon the surface ; but a deeper 
and an equally important lesson is taught in it. 
Neither its spirit nor its literal meaning can be 
limited to mere passive endurance. It reaches 
and includes the active powers of our nature. 
You would hardly look to find what is commonly 
called Calvinism in the Lord's prayer; but here 
it is, in one of its most offensive forms, in this ex- 
pression: " Thy will be done." This is not the 



80 SERMONS ON 

language of acquiescence and submission merely, 
as in the case of our Savior, but of earnest en- 
treaty, that it may be our meat and our drink, as 
it was his, to do the will of our Father in heaver. 
"We confess our utter inability, as of ourselves, to 
do the will of God. Distrusting and disowning 
our own strength, we ask God to bring to pass 
the doing of his will by us. The Apostle Paul 
felt this. He says: "When I would do good, 
evil is present with me. Oh, wretched man that 
I am, who shall deliver me from the body of this 
death? I thank God, through our Lord Jesus 
Christ." And every converted soul has felt the 
same meekness, and has looked to the same source 
for strength. Even unconverted men feel and 
confess this inability, though they do not go to 
God for help. The great dramatist of our lan- 
guage, who gives portraitures of human nature 
inferior only to those of Holy Writ, and who can- 
not be suspected of any leaning to stern ortho- 
doxy, puts this strong, but by no means exagge- 
rated language into the mouth of a murderer, full 
of remorse : 

a Try what repentance can 5 what ean it not ? 
Yet ; oh ! what can it, when one can't repent ?" 

This inability to do what we know we should, 
and perhaps wish to do, is part of our. sad heri- 
tage in our present estate of sin and misery. But 
in what does this inability consist? in what part 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 81 

of man's nature do we find the weakness, the de- 
fect which disables him ? This is a question 
which demands patient and thoughtful considera- 
tion. May the Father of Lights grant us the 
guidance of his Holy Spirit, while we proceed to 
investigate it. The first and great, the fundamen- 
tal command is, " Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God with all thy heart." Now, man evidently has 
intellect necessary to understand this. He can 
know God ; not that he can fully comprehend his 
nature, but he can know that there is a God, and 
be, to some extent, aware of his character. A 
brute or an idiot cannot do this. They are, there- 
fore, incapable of doing the will of God. But 
man has, we see, intellectual ability. He is ca- 
pable, also, of exercising the required affection — 
he can love. Now, it is possible to imagine a 
being of pure intellect, incapable of any affection, 
I do not, of course, suppose God ever created 
such a being ; indeed, I doubt whether such a 
being could be created; but we can conceive of 
such an one. Now the command, " Thou shalt 
love the Lord thy God with all thy heart," ad- 
dressed to such a being, would be a mockery. 
He could see and understand the character of 
God, but he could not feel any emotion resulting 
from such perceptions of God's attributes. But 
man can exercise this affection, and therefore he 
is in this sense able to do the will of God. Man 



82 SERMONS ON 

has also a conscience, to which this command may 
be addressed. He can feel the force of moral 
obligation, — he can see, and to some extent he 
does see, that he ought to obey God. If he did 
not, or rather could not, he would be incapable of 
obedience. What, then, is the inability of man to 
do the will of God ? It is his want of the dispo- 
sition to do it. This last kind of ability is often 
called moral, while the others are called natural. 
Man is said, therefore, by those who use these 
terms, to have natural ability, but moral inability. 
It is generally believed, I think, that our Church 
does not adopt this distinction. It seems to me, 
any candid person will see that our standards 
teach the doctrine I have already advanced, that 
man's inability is his want of disposition. " Man, 
by his fall into a state of sin, hath wholly lost all 
ability of will to any spiritual good accompany- 
ing salvation."* The Larger Catechism, in answer 
to Question 25, describes the corruption of man's 
nature, as " that whereby he is indisposed, disa- 
bled, and made opposite to all good, and wholly 
inclined to evil." 

But there are those who believe that our branch 
of the Church puts such a construction upon these 
passages — gives them such an interpretation— as 
to believe and teach that man has no ability of 
any kind to obey the law of God.- This is a great 
' " * Conf. Faith, Chap. 9, Sec. 37 



the lord's prayer. 83 

mistake. It would be easy to snow that the view 
of inability I have taken is recognized as the or- 
thodox one, by the most thorough Calvinists. I 
shall quote, at this time, only a few modern au- 
thors, to show what our belief really is. 

Dr. Green, the nestor of our Church, quoted 
the following expression, as giving his views : 
" The moral inability under which sinners lie as a 
consequence from the fall, is not of such a nature 
as to take away the guilt of sin." The venera- 
ble Dr. Mathews, for many years a Professor in 
our Theological Seminary in this State, says : 
" We possess, indeed, all the natural facilities 
which God demands in his service, but we are 
without the moral power. We have not the dis- 
position, the desire to employ them in his service." 
Dr. A. G. Fairchild, in his work entitled, " The 
Great Supper," published by our Board, uses the 
following language : " Sinners are urged to come 
to Christ, inasmuch as their inability is an ina- 
bility of the will. The reason that they cannot 
truly come to the Savior is, that they are not cor- 
dially willing. It is not their choice to come. 
Their voluntary blindness, their love of sin and 
aversion to holiness, are what disable them. We 
do not therefore teach that sinners are bound 
hand and foot, and thus prevented from coming 
to Christ, though desirous of doing so. This is 
a palpable misrepresentation of our sentiments, 



84 SERMONS ON 

They would be able if they were truly willing." 
Could any tiling be more explicit ? 

While we all accept the view I have given of 
the nature of man's inability, there are some in 
our branch of the Church, who believe — and I am 
one — that the terms, natural ability and moral 
inability, do not accurately describe the condition 
of man, and had therefore better not be employ- 
ed. Our objections to them are as follows : 

The language used conveys the idea that man's 
unwillingness to obey the will of God is not natu- 
ral to him. Now we believe, as I have no doubt, 
most of those who use the language I am con- 
demning do, that it is ; that is to say, it belongs 
to all men : it is a part of our nature. We bring 
it into the world with us. It is the very essence 
of that depravity, which we all agree to call na- 
tive, or natural. Our inability, that is, our un- 
willingness, is not natural in precisely the same 
sense as our intellect, our affections and con- 
science. God did not endow us with it, but it is 
natural in an important sense : which the distinc- 
tion between natural and moral, as commonly 
made, slights and overlooks. 

Again, man's ability may be said to be moral. 
It is not a physical ability that we contend for, 
but a moral ; an ability which is in the intellect, 
the affections, the conscience. These are the 
moral faculties in man. The possession of them 



85 

makes man a moral, accountable being, a subject 
of moral government ; that is, government by mo- 
tives — by reason instead of force. So that man 
has a moral ability to do the will of God. This 
may seem to some captious quibbling, but it is 
not intended to be such. We, who object to the 
phases under consideration, are persuaded that it 
is of great importance that our language upon 
these points should be as precise and accurate as 
possible. While we agree with those who use 
these terms, as to the nature and seat of man's 
inability, we prefer to describe it as being in his 
will or disposition. We know of no better de- 
scription of it than that already quoted, " man is 
indisposed, disabled, and made opposite to all 
spiritual good." 

I have been sometimes inclined to suspect that 
our branch of the Church differs from others in 
regard to another aspect of this subject. We hold, 
as they do, that man's inability results from, or 
rather consists in, such a perversion of his nature 
as makes him opposed to spiritual good, and in- 
clined to evil ; but we hold, also, that this per- 
version of his nature has extended, in a measure, 
to his intellect and conscience ; has infected and 
corrupted them, so that he does not see God's 
attributes — does not perceive their moral beauty, 
and feel his obligation to love God for them, as 
clearly and strongly as he would, if he had never 



86 SERMONS ON 

become indisposed, disabled, and opposite to all 
spiritual good. Revelation seems to us to teach 
this doctrine. This is what we understand the 
Bible to mean, when it represents men as having 
" the understanding darkened, being alienated from 
the life of God through the ignorance that is in 
them, because of the blindness of their hearts; 
having their foolish heart darkened," and other 
parallel passages which I might quote. We 
think that reason would lead us to expect, that 
the corruption of man's affections would thus ex- 
tend to his intellect and his conscience; and we 
believe — nay, we are sure, that the testimony of 
experience is on our side. Will not every Chris- 
tian acknowledge that, in his unconverted state, 
he did not see such loveliness in the character of 
God — so much that ought to awaken his admira- 
tion — that he did not feel so strongly as he now 
does his obligation to love and serve God ? And 
will he not confess that the reason why God's 
character is not more attractive to him now, and 
that he is not more sensible of his duly to love 
God is, the corruption remaining in him, which 
blinds his eyes and hardens his heart? What is 
this but to acknowledge that the perversion of his 
nature extends to his intellect and his conscience ? 
Now, it has sometimes appeared to me, that 
those who impute to us extreme and unreasona- 
ble views in regard to man's inability, do not look 



87 

at this particular point as we do. But, on re- 
viewing the matter, I am inclined to think that 
they have slighted this phase of the question. 
They have entirely mistaken our opinions. Sup- 
posing that we hold that man has no kind of abili- 
ty, in any degree, to do the will of God, in their 
zeal to vindicate God and man from such an as- 
persion, for such it is, in their well-meant endeav- 
ors to prove to us what we have never denied, 
that man has enough of what they call natural 
ability, to make him responsible, they forget to 
acknowledge, what I cannot think they would 
deny, that the corruption of man's nature has im- 
paired his faculties. I would remark here, in 
passing, that much of the harsh language of the 
old writers is to be understood as asserting, that 
man's reason and conscience have been weakened, 
as a consequence of the fall. When this is re- 
membered, it gives a very different meaning to 
many of their expressions, which, taken alone, and 
out of their connection, seem to deny man the 
possession of any ability whatever to do the will 
of God. 

I have seen it asserted, lately, by high authori- 
ty, that the difference between us and those who 
hold a looser theology is, that while we agree as 
to the nature of man's inability, they look upon it 
as under man's control, and we do not. They 
say, he has only to determine to love God, and 



88 SERMONS ON 

he can do it. We believe that, however much he 
may resolve and re-resolve, he will never do the 
will of God, until God works in him, both to will 
and to do. If this is the difference between us, it 
is certainly of no small importance. I must con- 
fess I have seen the former of these views avow- 
ed in some influential quarters ; but I cannot be- 
lieve that the majority of those who suppose us 
to hold illiberal and absurd opinions in regard to 
man's inability, attribute to him such a control 
over his own evil disposition. The teachings of 
the Bible are plainly to the contrary. " No man," 
said our Savior himself, a can come unto me, ex- 
cept the Father draw him." And shortly after- 
wards he repeats the same saying : " No man can 
come unto me, except it were given him of my 
Father." And, yet again, he tells his disciples 
in his parting instructions, "without me ye can do 
nothing." "Not that we are sufficient of ourselves," 
says the Apostle, " to think any thing as of our- 
selves." " Can the Ethiopian change his skin," 
said God hj the mouth of the prophet, " or the 
leopard his spots ? Then may ye also do good who 
are accustomed to do evil." Those who become 
the sons of God, are represented as being born, 
not of the will of man, but of God. The language 
of our Confession of Faith is equally explicit. 
Not that I would put this upon a level with the 
Word of God, but I introduce its declarations 



the lord's prayer." 89 

nere, to show how they coincide with the teach- 
ings of Holy Writ; and also to convince you 
that no one can subscribe to that venerable in- 
strument, without rejecting the idea that man can 
turn to God whenever he pleases. " Man, by his 
fall into a state of sin and misery, 7 ' say the West- 
minster Assembly of Divines, " hath wholly lost 
all ability of will to any spiritual good accompa- 
nying salvation ; so as a natural man, being whol- 
ly averse from that which is good, and dead in sin, 
is not able by his own strength to convert himself, 
or prepare himself thereto." 

This is the experience of every Christian. u I 
know too much," said a warmhearted Methodist 
brother to me, in speaking of one who had preach- 
ed, as he said, the doctrine that it was as easy for 
a sinner to turn round and be a Christian, as for 
him to take a right-hand or a left-hand road that 
happened to lead where he wished .to go ; "I 
know too much," said this devout man, " of the 
agony of a sinner under conviction, ever to believe 
that." And do we not all know too much of our 
own utter helplessness, to believe that man can 
convert himself, or prepare himself thereto ? The 
experience of the awakened soul is of the same 
•character. " My nature," said such an one to a 
minister of the Gospel, " is stronger than my will." 
Ah, how true ! The passionate man, shedding 
bitter tears over his haste and injustice — the 



90 SERMONS OH 

drunkard, reeling home to that disgraced family ? 
before whom and his God he has so often sworn 
to abstain forever.— indeed, all kinds and classes 
of men must make the same sad confession. At 
least, I cannot think it possible, that any intelli- 
gent person, professing to believe what is com- 
monly called Calvinism, in its most liberal pha- 
ses, can believe that man's evil propensities are 
under the control of his will. 

There are two classes of objectors to the senti- 
ments' I have advanced, both, perhaps, represent- 
ed here. Some of you will say, " I do not believe 
any such doctrine. Man has full power to do 
the will of God ; he can repent, reform, change 
his course of conduct, obey God, whenever he 
pleases." Well, my friend, do it : make the ex- 
periment. 

You do not love to read the Bible, to pray, to 
associate with Christians. You do not love God 
with all your heart, and your neighbor as your- 
self. Resolve, now, that you will do all this ; 
that you will perform, faithfully, all the duties 
God's word enjoins, and what success will you 
have ? You are the people that say, if you ev- 
er make a profession of religion, you, will show 
Church-members how to live. Ah, you do not 
know the force of your own evil tendencies. Be- 
cause you are floating down the stream, you think 
there is no current ; but turn and breast it, and 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 91 

you will soon see with what irresistible power, 
(irresistible by your own strength,) it sweeps you 
along. I say again, make the experiment. Many 
an awakened sinner has made it before you, and 
has discovered his own weakness, nay, utter ina- 
bility to do the will of God. The Lord grant 
that you may find this out before it is too late, 
and may flee for refuge to the hope set before 
you in the Gospel. 

But some one will say, on the other hand, " I 
believe this : I have an evil heart : I cannot change 
it : God only can. He will do so, if he sees fit, and 
I must wait till he does see proper to do so." Now, 
of you who make this profession, one of two things 
is true. Either you do not think it such a bad 
thing to be unwilling to obey God, or you do not 
truly believe that God alone can remove this un- 
willingness. 

If you felt yourself to be dangerously sick, and 
were persuaded that none but the most skillful 
physician could save you, how eagerly would you 
search for — how earnestly would you beseech such 
an one. 

But if you think yourself only a little, or not 
at all unwell, or believe that, however sick you 
may be, you are fully capable of managing your 
disease, you will have no anxiety for assistance. 
So, too, if you felt the wretchedness and guilt of 
sin ; if you were really persuaded that no one but 



92 SERMONS ON 

God could deliver you from that body of death, 
with what passionate importunity, what groans 
and sighs, would you cry to him for help. I know 
you do not feel the danger and the woe of your 
present condition ; you do not think yourself, as 
the Apostle did, a wretched man, because you do 
not love and obey God ; because there is a law of 
sin and death in your members. I long to see 
you feeling this, this conviction of sin, which shall 
drive you to God as your only resource. And if 
you would investigate the matter, I think you 
would find that you are not relying so entirely on 
the help of God. You think, after all, that, by 
and by, when you get ready, you can of yourself 
repent ; that is, change your heart and your affec- 
tions. Oh, that I could really convince you that 
this is not so ; that I could make you feel your 
utter inability, of your own strength, to convert 
yourself. I should look to see you finding your 
way to God by Him who has said, " Whosoever 
cometh unto me, I will in no wise cast out." 

There are some who will say, All this may be 
true ; but we do not think it is best to preach it, 
it does more harm than good. I reply, that when 
we say the sinner cannot of himself come to 
Christ, and do the will of God, we say only what 
Christ and his Apostles said ; and we are not 
afraid to follow their guidance. 

Besides, if the sinner cannot of himself turn to 



93 

God, lie ought to know it. If yon tell him that 
he can, or lead him to suppose that he can, he 
will be completely at ease, and will wait till he 
is ready, instead of seizing the appointed time, 
and the day of salvation. In not plainly showing 
him his helpless condition, you flatter him into a 
false and dangerous peace. 

There is yet another class of persons, to whom 
I must address myself. Sometimes you find pro- 
fessors of religion among them, though I hope no 
member of this Church has any such feeling, 
Generally, these persons are moral men, and 
what are commonly called, moralists ; a class to 
whom may be applied the preface to the parable 
of the Publican and the Pharisee : " They trust 
in themselves that they are righteous, and despise 
others." What do these people say ? "What is 
the use of all this dull, doctrinal preaching ; what 
has it to do with your text ? Give us a plain, 
practical sermon. " My friends, we are told in 
our form of government, that " truth is in order 
to goodness;" and this is sound philosophy. You 
cannot have correct practice, without sound doc- 
trine. What would you think of a student in 
medicine, who should say to his instructor, u What 
is the use of all this study about the theory of 
medicine? let us practice." Would you want 
such an one to practice on you? 

The truth I have been endeavoring to unfold 



94 SERMONS ON 

is eminently a practical one, and appropriate to 
our present subject. You will never pray this 
prayer as you should, " Thy will be done/' till 
you feel your utter inability, of yourself, to do 
the will of God. If you are a professor of relig- 
ion, you will not pray so earnestly, nor so often 
as you should, for grace to help in every time of 
need, until you are convinced that you can of 
your own self do nothing : that, as the branch 
cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the 
vine, no more can you, except you abide in Christ. 
My impenitent friend, you will never ask God 
for mercy — you will never cry, " Lord, save or I 
perish," until you feel that unless he does save, 
you will perish. You see, then, how important 
it is that this conviction of your utter helpless- 
ness should be waked up in your heart. The Lord 
grant that we may all so feel our dependence up- 
on him, that we shall send up together this im- 
portunate prayer, " Thy will be done." 

Perhaps you are one of those who say you 
would join the Church, you would make a profes- 
sion of religion, you would begin a Qhristian 
life, if you only thought you could carry it out. 
For you, this subject has a deep significance. 
You need first of all to learn, that you cannot of 
yourself carry it out, nor begin it, and that you 
must ask God to help you. Your language will 



the lord's prayer. 95 

then be, ci thanks be to God, who giveth us the 
victory, through our Lord Jesus Christ." 

But we pray that the will of God may be done 
in a certain manner — " as it is done in heaven. 1 ' 
No better explanation of this comprehensive 
phrase can be given, than that which was drawn 
out by a Sabbath School teacher, in his examina- 
tion of his class. However familiar any of us 
may be with this simple story, it will do us good 
to be reminded, that while God hides these things 
from the wise and prudent, he reveals them unto 
babes. "You have told me, my children," said a 
teacher, " where the will of God is to be done, on 
earth, and how it is to be done, as it is done in 
heaven. How do you think the angels, and the 
happy spirits, do the will of God in heaven, as they 
are to be our pattern?" The first child replied, 
*'theydoit immediately." The -second, " they 
do it diligently." The third, " they do it always." 
The fourth, " they do it with all the heart." The 
fifth, "they do it altogether. 

Here a pause ensued, and no child appeared to 
have an answer ready. But after some time a 
little girl arose and said, " why, sir, they do it 
without asking any questions." How suggestive 
is every one of these replies. Let us do the will 
of God immediately, never deferring it to a more 
convenient season. Let us do it diligently, not 
with listless indolence. Some professors of reli- 



96 SERMONS ON 

glon are very active and enterprising in their 
worldly affairs, but slow and careless in every- 
thing that pertains to the glory of God, and the 
good of their souls. They do not do the will of 
God as it is done in heaven. Let us do it always ; 
not simply when we shall gain influence, or friends, 
or money by it. Not when we have no tempta- 
tion to do otherwise ; not simply when we are 
among Christians, or in times of religious excite- 
ment ; but at all times, in all places, under all 
circumstances. 

Let us do it with all our hearts ; not reluctant- 
ly, not driven to it by fear, but because we love 
to do it. Whoever of us shall thus do the will 
of God, shall have the peace of God that passeth 
knowledge. 

" He that hath light in his own clear heart, 
May sit in the centre and enjoy bright day." 

But if this little company, who are banded to- 
gether as members of the Church of Christ, 
could do the will of God altogether, no jarring, 
no contention, no suspicion, what bliss would be 
ours. Like the multitude of them that believed 
after the pentecostal visitation of the Spirit, we 
should be of one heart and soul. 

And if to all this we could add such sweet 
submission, such confidence, that He doeth all 
things well, as to do the will of God without 



THE lord's prayer. 97 

asking any questions, never doubting, never fear- 
ful, never curious, what a daguerreotype of heaven 
the sun-light of love would paint, even on the 
sin-darkened face of earth. Who will not pray, 
u Thy will be done on earth, as in heaven." I 
cannot help thinking that this prayer will be 
granted. I have not yet thoroughly investigate^ 
the subject, but my childhood faith still clings 
fondly to that grand old theory of a personal 
reign of Christ upon the earth. 

u Through the harsh noises of our day, 
A low, sweet prelude finds its way ; 
Through clouds of doubt, and creeds of fear, 
A light is breaking, calm and clear. 

" That song of Love — now low and far, 
Ere long shall swell from star to star 5 
That light, the breaking day, which tips 
The golden-spired apocalypse." 



SERMON V. 



^ Give us this day our daily bread. — Matt. 6 : 11. 

The position of this, in relation to the other 
petitions of the Lord's Prayer, is somewhat re- 
markable. We make general request for the 
hallowing of God's name, for the coming of his 
kingdom, and the doing of his will as it is done 
in heaven, before we ask anything for ourselves 
individually. Little as this may arrest the at- 
tention of the casual reader, or even repeater of 
the prayer, it has a deep significance. This sub- 
ordination of our own needs to the glory of God, 
and the welfare of man, this forgetting of our 
own individual necessities in a sense of the wants 
and woes of a sinful world, is an essential ele- 
ment of the true spirit of prayer. Worldly- 
minded men sometimes say, they do not believe 
in the efficacy of prayer, for they have tried it, 
and it did no good. A man once told me, that 
he had prayed every Sunday morning for a year, 
and was none the better for it. Might not such 
persons find an explanation of this anomaly in the 
fact, that they have never had that supreme and 
absorbing regard for the glory of God, which is 



99 

essential to true prayer ? " Ye ask and receive 
not," says the apostle James, " because ye ask 
amiss ;" and then he goes on to explain what he 
means by asking amiss, " that }^e may consume it 
upon your lusts." Men ask for their own personal 
gratification, for health for instance, but not that 
they may have strength to labor for the glory of 
God ; for wealth, but not that they may spend it 
in God's service, and for the good of their fellow 
men. They ask these things of God because 
they feel their dependence upon him for them. 
But this consciousness of dependence gives them 
no pleasure ; they do not love to think how com- 
pletely God overrules their plans, and how he 
sometimes thwarts them. 

They would gladly be independent of him, if 
they could be. How different is this from the, 
" Thy will be done," which should always precede 
every request for temporal good. 

And even when such an one prays for " the 
forgiveness of sin, and the life everlasting," it is 
from a selfish fear of punishment, or a desire to 
be happy. Of course these may be, and I think 
always are, among the motives which lead men to 
trust in Christ, and properly so it is. But they 
are not to be the sole or supreme motives. They 
are such, however, with a worldly-minded, irreli- 
gious man, when he asks for "" the blessings Jesus 
has to give." What cares he for the glory of 



100 SERMONS ON 

God, and the honor of his law, if he himself may 
be safe? And when, as in the case of the moral- 
ist, he thinks he can save himself; or, as in the 
case of the Universalist, he has persuaded him- 
self that in his present irreligious condition, he 
is safe, it is little he troubles himself to pray to 
God. to praise him. to read his word. I do not 
mean to say that there are none who believe in 
the salvation of all men. who are devout lovers 
of the service of God. I have no doubt there 
are such ; it has been my privilege to be ac- 
quainted with some : but they form a meagre mi- 
nority of those who hold the doctrine in ques- 
tion. Generally, the louder a man is. in his as- 
sertions of this belief, and the more confident he 
seems to become of his own safety, the less and 
less does he care for God, and the Bible, and 
prayer. 

But there are those who are as confident of 
their safety as these persons can be, who 

a Can read their titles clear, 
To mansions in the skies y' 

having attained to what the apostle calls the full 
ranee of hope. This does not make them in- 
different to the service of God. Kay. the more 
confident they become, the more devout are they 
in fearing and worshiping our Father in Heaven. 
•''If any man be a worshiper of God, and 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 10 1 

doeth his will," we are told in the Holy Scriptures, 
" him he heareth." Now the men who say they 
have prayed, and it did no good, are not worship- 
ers of God, but of themselves ; their supreme 
affection is for themselves. They cannot ask, as 
the first and chief desire of their hearts, " hallowed 
be thy name." They do not hallow it ; nay, some 
of them at times blaspheme that worthy name. 
Neither can they pray with the heart, " thy king- 
dom come." They may have no particular objec- 
tions to the setting up of that kingdom, but they 
do not long for it. What they desire is, individ- 
ual good, and personal safety, no matter what be- 
comes of the cause of the King of kings. And 
indeed, they are not willing that the kingdom of 
God should come in their own hearts; that is ; 
that he should be their king. 

Their feeling toward the King of Zion is, " we 
will not have this man to reign over us." They 
are not endeavoring to do the will of God; they 
are not laboring to induce others to do it. How, 
then, can they expect to be heard, when they ask 
personal favors ? If you would offer up accepta- 
ble prayer, you must pray after the manner our 
Savior taught us. Personal consideration must 
be subordinated to, and merged in, the great 
interests of the kingdom of God. 

It is peculiarly appropriate that the petition 
we are now considering, should have been inime- 



102 SERMONS ON 

diately preceded by the one to which your atten- 
tion was called in a previous lecture. 

We pray here for life, to which we all cling 
with such an unyielding grasp. Yet we should 
ever say with reference even to this, " thy will be 
done." And the great reason why we should 
wish to live is, that we may do the will of our 
Father in Heaven. And when we have finished 
the work he gives us to do, we should be ready, 
nay, glad to go home. 

The direct teachings of this petition are highly 
important. The first which occurs to me is, our 
entire dependence upon God, even for the ccni- 
monest comforts of life. Our Savior does not 
teach us to say, " Give us this day our daily 
bread," because this is the only thing for which 
we need to ask. But he takes out this from the 
circle of our wants, as the symbol, the represen- 
tative of the whole. And it is worthy of note, 
that he singles out that in which we seem to be 
most independent. In what do we see more 
clearly the direct, simple result of our own labor, 
than in the procuring and preparation of our food ? 
Yet even in this we are to recognize the hand of 
God. What he gives us, we gather ; he opens 
his hand and satisfies the desire of every living 
thing. And if this be true of such apparently 
simple processes as the supply of our daily wants, 
how much more should we feel our dependence 



THE LORD^ PRAYER. 103 

upon God for those things over which it is obyi- 
ous we have no control, or at best but a limited 
and indirect one. 

But there is a deep philosophy in this prayer, 
simple as it may seem ; nay, silly, as I presume 
it must appear to the scornful, scoffing, godless 
man, who casts off fear, and restrains prayer be- 
fore God. What a circle of agencies must be at 
work with unwearied diligence to provide my 
daily food. For me the sun must shine, and the 
rain must fall, the grass must grow, and the lit- 
tle .brook must warble on its silvery way. The 
sturdy woodman must wield his axe. The sun- 
browned farmer must follow his plough, scatter 
the seed, and wave the gleaming sickle. The 
ship must spread her canvas to the breeze, the 
merchant-prince must build his ware-houses and 
his docks. 

Well may I ask God to give me my daily 
food, when at so many points in this chain of 
events he can come in to derange every plan, to 
thwart every enterprize. He can send incessant 
rain and sweeping floods, or long-burning 
drought. He holds the winds in his fist, he can 
vex the ocean, and strew the sea-shore with 
wrecks. Almost every paper you pick up at the 
present time has something to say of the pros- 
pects of the wheat crop.* What does this mean? 

* This Sermon was preached just before harvest, 



104 SERMONS ON 

Man has clone all he can, and now he waits the 
pleasure and the providence of God. The pros- 
pect is fair now, they say, for a good return, but 
how soon may this fair prospect be blasted. How 
appropriate, how philosophical, then, is this 
prayer. 

But we are not taught to ask for our food in 
the gross, if I may use such an expression. We 
do not say, once for all, " Give us every day our 
daily bread, so that we have a supply of food for 
a long time to come ;" but every day we come 
and say, " Give us this clay our daily bread." In 
the parallel passage, in Luke, it is said, u Give 
us, day by day, our daily bread ;" thus we recog- 
nize God's ever-present agency. We are not to 
suppose that he interferes only at some remote point, 
and at longs intervals ; that only the hidden and 
perhaps inscrutable laws which regulate the wind 
blowing where it listeth, and similar operations 
in nature, are under the control and guidance of 
the Almighty, but the apparently trivial circum- 
stances which enter into the details of every day. 
are alike subject to his power, and watched over 
by his eye. 

This brings me to formally assert, what a care- 
ful observer will have inferred from what has been 
already said, that this petition involves and 
teaches, what is commonly called the doctrine of 
a particular providence. In other words, I be- 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 105 

lieve, in the language of our Shorter Catechism ■ 
that a God's works of providence are his most 
holy, wise, and powerful, preserving and govern- 
ing all his creatures, and all their actions." No 
other belief seems to me scriptural or rational 
And first let us appeal to the word and the testi- 
mony. What saith the Scripture ? I take a few. 
passages from the Old and New Testaments, as 
specimens of what may be found, as every body 
knows, in all parts of both. " He giveth to the 
beast his food, and to the young ravens which 
cry." — Psalm 147 : 9. " He causeth the grass to 
grow for the cattle, and herb for the service of man, 
that he may bring forth food out of the earth." — 
Ps. 104 : 14. "0 Lord, thou preservest man and 
beast." — Ps. 36 : 6. " He maketh his sun to rise on 
the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just 
and on the unjust." — Matt. 5 : 45. " Behold the 
fowls of the air : for they sow not, neither dp 
they reap, nor gather into barns, yet your Heav- 
enly Father feedeth them."— Matt. 6 : 26. " Are 
not two sparrows sold for a farthing, and one of 
them shall not fall to the ground without your 
Father.* But the very hairs of your head are 
all numbered."— Matt. 10 : 29, 30. If men 
would only receive the teachings of God's word, 



* Not without your Father's notice, as it is often quoted • 
but without him, without his permission, his interposition. 
IT 



106 SERMONS ON 

we should have little dispute about a particular 
providence. 

I said, however, that no belief but ours ap- 
peared rational to me, and here the hardest bat- 
tle is to be fought in behalf of this doctrine. 
Many a man, who is compelled to acknowledge 
that the Bible teaches it, will yet demur as to its 
reasonableness. Paul, who was no mean logician, 
seems to have thought this a rational belief. For 
in his masterly address to the Athenians, in 
which he adduces no authority from Scripture, 
and was by the very nature of the case precluded 
from adducing any, but makes his appeal directly 
to the reason and conscience of his hearers, he 
makes this assertion : u God, that made the earth 
and all things therein, hath made of one blood 
all nations of men, for to dwell on all the face of 
the earth, and hath determined the times before 
appointed, and the bounds of their habitation. For 
in him we live, and move, and have our being." 
How confidently he says this, as if anticipating 
no denial. How natural such a belief. Who 
can think that God would set in action all the 
mighty agencies at work around us in nature, and 
not superintend them ? Who can think that he 
would create such beings as we are, with all our 
varied interests and wants, yet disregard us entire- 
ly. I for one cannot believe such an absurdity, 
such horrid impiety. 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 107 

We are met here by a philosophical theory 
which seems to avoid this folly, yet denies, in 
terms, at least, a particular providence. Most of 
those who hold it, I think, profess to receive the 
Scriptures of the Old and New Testament as 
the word of God ; but I am not aware that they 
ever undertake to prove it by the Bible. 

This forbearance on their part is wise ; for not 
only can it not be proved by Scripture, but when 
fairly analysed, when followed out to its legiti- 
mate results, it contradicts Scripture. 

The devout Christians, who hold this theory , 
and there are not a few of them, have such con- 
fused views of it, that they do not perceive this 
contradiction. If they could only have clear, 
well-defined conceptions of what they now hold 
so vaguely, they would renounce it intellectually, 
as they actually do in their prayers and their 
emotions. 

The theory referred to is, that " God at first 
imparted certain powers to the material and spir- 
itual creation, and established certain permanent 
laws, and that, as he originally established this 
perfect order, this system of powers and laws, 
and set things in operation upon this plan, there 
is no need of his continued and present agency ; 
that the created system thus contrived and estab- 
lished will go on of itself, without being con- 
stantly propelled, as they express it, by the hand 



108 SERMONS ON 

of the Creator ; that the powers or active princi- 
ples with which he has endowed the system of 
things, and to which he has given perpetuity, 
continue to operate and produce their proper ef- 
fects without any further act of divine power."* 
They compare the universe to a clock, or a simi- 
lar piece of machinery, which, when wound up, 
goes of itself for a certain time. This theory, 
when fully carried out, turns God out of the uni- 
verse; it does not see God anywhere; it never 
says, c - Lo ! what hath God wrought" I say it 
never says this, because, if the universe came 
from the hand of God perfect, completely en- 
dowed with all these powers and agencies, there 
is no need for him ever to interfere. A clock 
must be wound up, but this is owing to its imper- 
fections. If the universe is a vast clock, it never 
needs winding up or rearranging. Perfection is 
impressed upon every part of it. Where is the 
evidence of any occasional interference on the 
part of the Creator ? Do the planets run their 
course at a constantly slackening pace ? Does 
the thunder sound less and less loudly until the 
spring is again recoiled as tightly as before ? 
There are some who believe that God does not 
interfere ; he simply superintends ; he watches 
over this vast and complicated machinery, lest 
some part of it should become deranged. But I 
* Wood's Theological Lectures, 



I 



THE LORD'S PRAYER; 109 

say to this, that if the mechanism is perfect, if 
these laws are as immutable as they say they are, 
there is no need of this. Who would think of 
sending for the maker of a clock to watch it all 
the time, lest it should get out of order ? This 
would be proof, not that his mechanism was im- 
perfect, but that it was a miserable failure. For 
my own part, if I held this theory at all, I would 
hold it in all its blank, naked, atheism, that God 
set the universe a going, and since then has never 
touched a single spring, has never spent a single 
thought upon it. 

This is intelligible and consistent. There are 
some who say that God upholds the powers and 
laws of nature. It is very important to know 
what is meant by upholding. If it is meant that, 
God is always present, ensuring the efficiency of 
these powers, and securing the permanence of 
these laws, then this is all that we who believe in 
a particular providence contend for. We believe 
that he endowed the creation with certain pow- 
ers, that he ordained certain modes in which these 
powers should act, that he is every where present, 
supporting these powers, and that they derive 
their strength immediately from him. Or if I 
were to state the matter exactly as it lies in my 
own mind, I should say that God determined to 
exert his power in certain uniform modes, and 
this is what I understand by a law of nature. 



110 SERMONS ON 

And lie works through second causes, through 
the energies of nature, and the activity of man. 
To me it is no rhapsody of poetry that " sees 
God in clouds, and hears him in the wind." He 
is there to me. I see no blind impersonal law, 
"but my Father's hand drawing the curtains of the 
night about me, and fanning my feverish cheek 
with the cooling breeze. 

There is a variation of this clock theory, if it 
is not an entirely new one, which I must notice. 
It is a belief that ordinarily God lets the world 
go on according to general laws, without paying 
any attention to it, but in certain great crises he 
interferes. The rising of the sun, the falling of 
rain, the death of man, all these come to pass 
through the operation of permanent laws. But 
such great events as the downfall of an empire, 
the birth of Christ, the Great Reformation, are 
objects of his providential care. 

This is, it seems to me, the most illogical of all 
the theories on this subject. For a care of one 
of these great events, involves a care over every 
thing connected with and related to it. And 
then let any one consider upon what little things 
great events sometimes hinge, how the circum- 
stances of our daily life are interwoven with 
all the great movements of the age, and he will 
see that such a general providence, without a 
particular providence, is impossible. There are 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. Ill 

some things in regard to this matter I could wish 
to discuss more fully. One is the animus^ the 
spirit, the intention, of this theory. It is evi- 
dently an attempt to save the Almighty the 
trouble, the effort of taking care of the universe. 

Another point is the strange misconception of 
a law of nature, what it is and what it can do, 
that lies at the basis of this theory. I shall 
have occasion to recur again to the latter point, 
before I close this series of Sermons, and hope to 
have more time for its discussion. 

But even then I know I shall find that this 
whole subject is in some of its aspects incompre- 
hensible. Indeed, as Mr. Burke has said, "What 
subject is there, that does not branch out into infini- 
ty ?." I must be permitted to add, before closing 
this brief and imperfect discussion, what is to me, 
however it may affect others, an unanswerable 
argument. The Bible is clearly opposed to the 
philosophical theory we have been considering. 
I have already referred to some of these passages. 
" He clothes the lilies, feeds the ravens, numbers 
the very hairs of our heads." The whole tenor 
of Scripture is to recognize the present, personal 
agency of God in all our life. We are told that 
this is a Hebrew form of speech. It is a form 
of speech I could wish to see pervade all lan- 
guages. And let me say here, that on no other 
theory but that of a particular providence, is it 



112 SERMONS ON 

possible to pray the prayer our Lord teaches us 
here. If he has no agency in the matter, why 
ask him to give us our food ? Men of the world 
do not believe he has any such agency, and there- 
fore they never ask him for such favors ; they 
never thank him for what they have. But, my 
Christian friends, this is not our belief. We look 
upon our Heavenly Father as the author of all 
our mercies, and the God of all grace. We go 
out in the morning, assured that the steps of a 
good man are ordered by the Lord, — what he gives 
us, we gather. We come home at night, and he 
giveth his beloved sleep. Is not this a consoling 
doctrine ? Who would not rather believe that 
this vast fabric of the universe is presided over 
by a conscious, intelligent person, capable of be- 
ing moved by prayer, governing, it is true, ac- 
cording to great principles invariable within cer- 
tain limits, yet so governing as that the poor and 
the helpless may hope for mercy ; who would not 
rather believe this, than that we are under the 
dominion of blind, impersonal agencies, the con- 
trol of which God has voluntarily abdicated? 

This philosophical theory which some have at- 
tempted to hold at the same time with the Bible, 
gives us up as fully to Fatalism, as Mohammedism 
itself. True, order, of which they have made a 
god, reigns in their universe ; but it is the order of 
despotism ; it is the order which reigned in War- 






THE LORD'S PRAYER. 113 

saw, amid the shrieks and groans of the dying. 
Prom such order I turn away with horror, while 
I fix my eyes with grateful adoration on my 
Father in Heaven, whose kingdom ruleth over 
all. 

Another lesson which our Lord teaches us in 
this petition, is the duty of family religion. We 
are, every family apart, to say, every morning, 
" Give us this day our daily bread." If I know 
my own heart, I love the public assemblies of the 
saints. I am not only willing, or even pleased, I 
delight to praise God in the great congregation. 
I hope, too, that it fills my soul with joy to meet 
with an individual Christian, to talk with him of 
our conflicts here, and of the glory that shall be re- 
vealed in us. But no department of the service 
of God is so attractive to me as family religion. 
How beautiful, for instance, to see a mother tell- 
ing her children of Samuel, to whom God called 
when but a child ; or of Him who said, u Suffer 
little children to come unto me ;" or teaching 
them this prayer, which should be among the first 
things a mother teaches her child, and which 
should blend in with, and irradiate with its heav- 
enly light, every memory of home. ' Especially, 
how sweet to gather your own little group, no 
traitor heart within that circle, no suspicious eye, 
no jarring voice ; and say together, " Give us this 
day our daily bread ; be our God and guide, our 



114 SERMONS ON 

portion and hope. 5 ' I pity the home where the 
voice of prayer is never heard — where they sit 
down to their daily food without thanking God. 
They may live in splendor and luxury, their 
tables may groan with abundance, and be graced 
with the delicacies of every season and every 
clime ; but they know nothing of the purer joys of 
life. They have no idea how it sweetens every 
joy, and lightens every grief, to see in them all, 
the hand of our Heavenly Father. I would 
rather dwell in a hovel, and live on bread and 
water, loving and worshiping the Giver of every 
good and perfect gift, than to. share in their golden 
wealth. And what an unwelcome visitor is the 
King of Terrors to such a family. No one to 
pray, no one to whisper in the ear of the dying 
that message of our Lord : '• He that believeth 
in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live." 
O, what a dreary place is a pra} T erless home in 
the hour of affliction. 

There may be some members of this Church, 
who are not in the habit of saying, u Give us this 
day our daily bread," who excuse themselves in 
various ways from this duty of family worship. 
I will not taunt you as men of the world do, 
with not being what professors of religion should 
be. But let me tell you kindly, that you are not 
only giving the enemy occasion to blaspheme, but 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 115 

you are depriving yourselves of an important 
source of strength and enjoyment. 

I know of nothing, except secret prayer, which 
I hope none of you neglect, that will help you in 
the conflict with " corruption without, and temp- 
tation within," which is our common lot, so much 
as girding on afresh every clay the whole armor 
of God, in the midst of those with whom you 
are most intimately associated, and who look up 
to you as their head. It would require a volume 
to discuss all the influences and relations of this 
delightful exercise. Let me simply suggest to 
you, that the machinery of your home life will 
move with less friction, and be less likely to get 
out of order, if you are in the habit of thus com- 
mending yourselves, as a family, to that God who 
setteth the solitary in families. And I must tell 
you frankly, that in refusing to worship him as a 
family apart, you are guilty of great injustice to 
your children. You are depriving them of one 
of the strongest safe-guards against vice and 
crime, with which they could be provided. I speak 
from experience, when I say that there is nothing 
will so powerfully restrain a young man, will so 
follow him into every haunt of sin, however gay 
and delusive, as the memory of a prayer a mother 
taught him, and a father offered up for him in the 
home of his childhood. 

If, then, you would keep your children from 



J 

s 

116 SERMONS ON 

the evil that is in the world, accustom them from 
their earliest infancy to the delightful duties of 
family worship. And I think I may press this 
point upon irreligious parents. It seems to me 
you cannot begin the day better than by offering 
up the petition we are now considering, even 
though you have no such sense of guilt as would 
lead you to go on to the next one, " Forgive us 
our debts." Even if you think you „ are good 
enough, and do not feel any need of pardon, you 
are not so irrational as to deny that it is God 
who gives us rain from heaven, and fruitful sea- 
sons, filling our hearts with food and gladness." 

Are you so ungrateful as to be ashamed to 
acknowledge his goodness even in the privacy of 
your home? The least that you can do with 
your meagre religious views is, to thank God ev- 
ery time you partake of his bounty. Do not, I 
beg you, with besotted, base ingratitude, cram 
yourself, and blaspheme your feeder. 

Our Lord teaches us in this petition to avoid 
anxiety and fretfulness. We are not to look 
forward into the far-off future, when we pray for 
the supply of our temporal wants, but simply to 
ask for daily bread, and be satisfied with the as- 
surance, that our Heavenly Father will give it. 

Even Christians sometimes distress themselves 
with fears lest the time may come when they 
shall suffer want. But we are expressly forbid 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 117 

den to take such anxious thoughts for the mor- 
row, seeing that our Heavenly Father knoweth 
what things we have need of. We have the prom- 
ise of this life as well as of that which is to come. 
Why should we be disquieted ? "I have been 
young," says the Psalmist, " and now am old ; 
yet I have not see the righteous forsaken, nor his 
seed begging bread." Have prudence and fore- 
sight ; 1% ut do not vex yourself about the future. 
That was a noble saying of the Christian hero : 
" I am immortal till my work is done." 

We are also taught here to take heed, and be- 
ware of covetousness. Having food and raiment, 
let us be therewith content. He who prays this 
prayer cannot be a grasping, miserly man. Not 
that he will be content to live from " hand to 
mouth ;" he will be more diligent and hopeful in 
his worldly business, since he here asks God to 
bless him in it. But he will ever remember, that 
all these things perish with the using ; and that 
anything more than a supply of our wants, is val- 
uable only as it enables us to minister to the spir- 
itual and temporal necessities of others. He 
will, therefore, labor, as the apostle directs, " work- 
ing with his hands the thing which is good, that 
he may have to give to him that needeth." 

Finally, we are taught in this petition the 
brevity and uncertainty of life. I will not say 
to my soul, " soul, thou hast much goods laid up 



118 SERMONS ON 

for many years ; take thine ease, eat, drink and 
be merry," lest God should say to me, " Thou 
fool; this night thy soul shall be required of 
thee." I will only ask for daily food. 

u For here my spirit waiting stands, 
Till God shall bid it fly.' 7 

Blessed is that servant, whom his Lord, when 
he cometh, shall find so doing. 



SERMON VI. 



And forgive us our debts ; as we forgive our debtors. 

Matt. 6 : 12. 

Appolonius, of Tyranna, a heathen philosopher 
who lived shortly after Christ, was accustomed to 
pray, " Ye gods, give me only that which I de- 
serve." There are few who could have the hardi- 
hood thus to address the Great Supreme. 

Every religion of the race has recognized our 
condition as sinners, though they propose various 
and widely different methods of atoning for our 
sins. Indeed, a religion which did not, in some 
way, attempt to satisfy this craving of human na- 
ture after reconciliation with an offended .Deity, 
could have no hold upon the soul of man. And 
just in proportion as this feeling is recognized 
and received, will be the power of a religious 
system. It is in this way we account for the 
fact that Unitarianism and Rationalism never have 
had, and never can have, such a wide and supreme 
dominion as Romanism. For the former, how- 
ever plausible they may seem, and however much 
they may commend themselves to the mere intel- 
lect of man, lose their hold upon the heart, give 
the lie to his moral consciousness, by representing 



120 SERMONS ON 

our estrangement from God as being very slight 
and unimportant, and our reconciliation to liim 
as requiring little effort or sacrifice. But the 
latter, with all its absurdities and extravagancies, 
fully recognizes this longing of the soul for for- 
giveness, and attempts to relieve it. To this same 
source we trace the power of all false religions, 
and indeed, to a great extent, of all religions. 
The idolatrous Israelite made his child pass 
through the fire of Moloch; the Roman slaugh- 
tered whole herds in honor of his deities ; the 
Hindoo swings from a hook, or flings himself un- 
der the wheels of the car of Juggernaut ; the 
Romanist lacerates his body, or shuts himself up 
in a cell — because they believe these are the ways 
to expiate their sins, and obtain eternal life. The 
Christian differs from them, not as to the necessi- 
ty of an atonement, or as to our offering some sacri- 
fice to secure our restoration to favor, but he 
shows unto them a more excellent way. 

Pure Christianity differs from all false relig- 
ions, and from all imitations and corruptions of 
itself, in that it alone, properly speaking, teaches 
the doctrine of the forgiveness of sin. Other re- 
ligions teach man's sinfulness, and the necessity 
of an atonement, but they devise methods by 
which man can make this expiation for himself, 
and thus demand, as a right, what the Gospel ac- 
cords to him only as of the mercy of God. 



THE LORD^S PRAYER. 121 

It is Christianity alone which teaches us to 
confess, after we have done all, that we are but 
unprofitable servants ; it is the Christian alone 
who cries, " (rod, be merciful to me a sinner." 
Yet there are those in every Christian communi- 
ty, the language of whose hearts, and a fair rep- 
resentation of whose belief is, " Give me that 
which I deserve." I do not suppose they would 

% dare to frame such a prayer, or rather such a de- 
mand, into words, and address it to their Maker ; 
yet their language and conduct show them to be 
disciples of Appolonius, rather than of Jesus. 

■ They are of the number of those who compare 
themselves among themselves. Our Savior spake 
a parable concerning them, describing them as 
those who trusted in themselves that they were 
righteous, and despised others. They are as good 
as Church members, or even better. They are 
taken for Church members, in preference to some 
who have really made a profession of religion. If 
ever they join the Church, they will be more 
consistent than Christians generally are. Oh, 
how different is this boastful spirit from that 
piteous cry, a God, be merciful to me a sinner I" 
which contrition wrings from the heart of the 
penitent. 

And these persons are among the most unim- 
pressible to whom the minister of the Gospel ad- 
dresses himself. " Seest thou," said Solomon, " a 
i 



122 SERMONS ON 

man wise in his own conceit, there is more hopo 
of a fool than of him." This is true, and was 
doubtless spoken in regard to the affairs of this 
life. But it has also a higher meaning and refe- 
rence. The terms, wise and wisdom, fool and 
folly, are used, especially in the book of Prov- 
erbs, in a spiritual sense. " The fear of the Lord is 
the beginning of wisdom :" a Fools make a mock 
at sin." These, and similar expressions, show hov 
we are to regard the passage I have quoted. — 
Seest thou a man wise in his own conceit — a man 
confident of his own goodness — wrapped up in 
the robe of his own righteousness, there is more 
hope of a fool, of a wicked man, than of him. 
Publicans and harlots press into the kingdom of 
God before proud, boastful Pharisees. The very 
beginning of a Christian life is a consciousness of 
our sinfulness in the sight of God ; such a sense 
of our own unworthiness as makes us look with 
compassion on the faults of others, or lose sight 
of them entirely in the absorbing view of our own 
short comings. But these people, who run over 
all their good qualities so glibly : their kindness 
to the poor, their honesty, their correctness of 
life and speech, have no idea at all how their con- 
duct must appear in the eyes of a holy God. 

They cannot pray, " Forgive us our debts, our 
trespasses," for they imagine the few little slips 
they may occasionally make, are atoned for by 



the lord's prayer. 123 

their numerous good deeds. They do not feel 
their need of a Savior, and therefore the cross of 
Christ is foolishness to them. I should have 
more hopes of success with the wicked and the 
abandoned, than with those decent, well-behaved 
people who rely so much on their morality. 

I would not deter men from being moral. I 
would not teach them that the more wicked they 
are the more hope is there of their being forgiven ; 
and that therefore they should continue in sin, 
that grace may abound. God forbid ! I would 
have all men to lead peaceable, and quiet, and 
honest lives. 

But I would keep them from relying upon this 
outward morality for acceptance with God. I 
would have them consider how much of their 
goodness may be due to the force of circumstan- 
ces — to the absence of temptation, or the fear of 
detection ; and how little credit they deserve for 
such morality. Above all, I would have them 
beware how they venture to offer such seeming 
uprightness to Him who looketh on the thoughts 
and intents of the heart. I believe a virtuous 
person, who feels how little claim his goodness 
gives him upon the favor of God — is not far from 
the kingdom of heaven — is much more likely to 
turn to God, than a wicked man, with a benighted 
heart and a stupid conscience. But I assert again, 
that a man who relies upon his own goodness, is. 



124 SERMONS ON 

so far as we can see, the most helpless of all. I 
should sooner expect the thief upon the cross, and 
the woman who was a sinner, to pray, " Forgive 
us. our trespasses," than such proud, self-confident 
people. 

I do not mean to say that all moral, upright 
persons, who have made no profession of religion, 
do thus plume themselves upon their supposed 
goodness. There are many of blameless lives, 
humanly speaking, who are far from trusting in 
themselves that they are righteous, and despising 
others. The Church of Christ loves and prays 
for such ; nay, Christ himself beholding them, 
loves them. Yet it cannot be denied, that there 
are those in every Christian community, the lan- 
guage of whose heart is, "Give me what I deserve." 
And I say again, I have little hope of them : none 
at all until they are dislodged from their position 
of false security. 

My Christian friends, there are just such self- 
righteous people in the Church, persons who trust 
in the soundness of their orthodoxy, the number 
and the fervor of their prayers — the punctuality 
of their attendance upon religious services, pub- 
lic or private. 

And they, too, are the counterpart of our Sa- 
vior's inimitable description. They not only 
trust in themselves that they are righteous, but 
they despise others. They look with ill-concealed 



the lord's prayer. 125 

contempt upon those whose creed is not so cor- 
rect — whose devotions are not so frequent — whose 
gifts to missions and missionaries are not so nu- 
merous and costly. Here, again, I do not mean 
to depreciate orthodoxy, or attendance at meeting, 
or benevolence. They are important. I insist 
upon them as Christian duties, but I protest 
against a reliance upon them. 

After we have done all, we should say, u we 
are unprofitable servants, we have done only what 
was our duty to do." Nothing is a better mark 
of a Christian, than lowliness of mind — a con- 
sciousness of our unworthiness. And there is 
nothing in which the religious experience of the 
day is more deficient. Read the writings of Da- 
vid, and Jeremiah, and Paul ; examine the expe- 
rience of Edwards, and of Brainard, and Martyn, 
and every eminent saint ; and you will find them 
marked with this peculiarity, of a deep sense of 
sinfulness. What was said of different religions, 
may be said of the religions of different men, 
Just in proportion to the sincerity and strength 
of your consciousness of sin, will be the power 
and fervor of your Christian life. If you are 
one of those who think themselves very good 
members of the Church, you have great reason 
to stand in doubt of yourself. " Let him that 
thinketh he standeth, take heed lest he fall !" 

The addition to this prayer, the condition annexed 






126 SERMONS ON 

to it "by our Lord, is certainly a very marked pecu- 
liarity of our religion. Stoicism and Maliommed- 
anism have taught men to treat with contempt the 
insults, and endure with patience the injuries they 
could not avenge, but they have never taught 
men to forgive. The very divinities of most re- 
ligions have been passionate and revengeful, and 
of course their worshipers must have been like 
unto them. It is notorious, that men of the 
world look upon revenge, and implacability, as 
manly and honorable. Forgiveness is not even 
in the worldly man's catalogue of virtues ; he 
never thinks of condemning himself for being 
harsh and unrelenting. In nothing does the 
Gospel of our Lord so set itself in opposition to 
the natural heart of man, as in this which Leigh- 
ton calls the blessed doctrine of forgiveness. The 
utterances, to use a cant phrase of the day, of 
our Lord on this point, are clear and repeated. 
In this very sermon on the mount, from which 
the text is taken, this difficult and distasteful du- 
ty is enjoined no less than three times, with a 
plainness which cannot be evaded. In the pre- 
ceding chapter, in exposing the false teaching 
of the Scribes and Pharisees, he says: '• I say 
unto you, love your enemies, bless them that 
curse you, do good to them that hate you, and 
pray for them which despitefully use you and 
persecute you." In this petition we are now con- 






the lord's prayer. 127 

sidering, lie teaches the same great lesson. And, 
not content with this repetition, immediately at 
the close of this prayer, he recurs to this identi- 
cal topic, saying, " For if ye forgive men their 
trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive 
you ; but if ye forgive not men their trespasses, 
neither will your Father forgive your trespasses." 
So important did he consider this duty, which 
men of the world, and even some who call them- 
selves his followers, feel at liberty to utterly ig- 
nore. And you will notice that, in this last 
repetition, our Lord makes our forgiveness to de- 
pend entirely on our forgiving others. Was 
there ever such a religion ? Was there ever such 
a prayer % ci Forgive us our trespasses, as we 
forgive those who trespass against us. J5# There is 
no better,. surer mark of a Christian, than the 
exhibition of a forgiving spirit. Better than of- 
ferings and whole burnt offerings, better than 
zeal and orthodoxy, it stamps its possessor as an 
Israelite indeed, in whom there is no guile. 
Yet we find not a few professed followers of our 
Savior, harsh and unrelenting : severe in their 

* I have preferred, generally, in the course of this Sermon, 
to use the word trespass, instead of debts. The former term 
conveys, I think, a more correct idea of the real meaning, 
(see verse 14th of this Chapter,) of the text, though the words, 
debts and debtors, are literal translations from the original. 
Trespasses and trespass occur, however, in the parallel 
passage in Luke. 



128 SERMONS ON 

judgment of the erring, they seem to take a kind 
of demoniac delight in the anguish and remorse 
which the guilty themselves exhibit. They share 
in and rejoice at the scorn and contempt which 
society visits upon such persons ; and with what 
quiet satisfaction they seem to be inspired, when 
some proud person of wealth or distinction falls 7 
and is humbled to the dust. No grief, no regret 
even, only a cold, bitter, " served him right," or, 
"just what I expected." Is this a fancy sketch? 
I would that it were. But there are such people 
in every communion — professed imitators of Him 
who prayed, "Father, forgive them, for they 
know not what they do." Oh, my brethren, such 
a bitter, vindictive spirit, is a horrible caricature 
of our holy religion. 

The world is often called unforgiving; and so it 
is, to particular classes. For the lowly and obscure, 
for the unfortunate and miserable, however peni- 
tent, however much a reformed and upright course 
of conduct may have atoned for early errors, for 
them there is no mercy. But if a man has wealth 
and assurance ; if, so far from being penitent, the 
more guilty he is, the bolder he grows, the world will 
soon forget his offences. Nay, there are things, 
criminal even in the eye of human law, for which 
he may be applauded. And there is scarcely any 
offence he can commit, which, if he has wealth 
and station, the world will not ultimately forgive 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 129 

and forget. There is a singular exception to this 
rule, to which I wish to call your attention. The 
world has no mercy for an erring professor of re- 
ligion, or ministers of the Gospel. They judge 
us with a rigorous severity, they could not en- 
dure themselves. Let them remember, that with 
what judgment they judge, they shall be judged ; 
and with what measure they mete, it shall be 
measured to them. They sometimes undertake 
to justify their severity toward us by saying that 
they do not make such professions. 

We do not, I would say in reply, profess to be 
perfect; we do not set ourselves up as models for 
imitation. We promise to endeavor to live god- 
ly in Christ Jesus ; to adorn the doctrine of God 
our Savior, with well ordered lives and conversa- 
tion. But there is nothing in this, coupled as it 
always is with an acknowledgment of our prone- 
ness to err, to justify such uncharitable severity 
as is generally exhibited toward us by the world. 
I, for one, am thankful that a merciful and gra- 
cious God is to be our final judge. 

The natural disposition of woman is more con- 
genial to the mild and peaceful spirit of the Gos- 
pel, than that of man. Christianity has done 
every thing for her, and she, in return, has done 
much for Christianity. 

In almost every Church, a majority of the 
members are women. Our prayer-meetings 



130 SERMONS ON 

throughout the world would make but a sorry 
show, if it were not for them. And the teachings 
of this prayer we are now considering, owe much 
of their influence to the fact, that it drops into 
our hearts in childhood, from a mother's lips. 
This particular petition is in sympathy with 
the general temper of woman. She is ordinarily 
more forgiving and compassionate than man. A 
passionate, revengeful woman is frightful. I love 
to see a lady have strength of soul enough to re- 
pel insult, and resist injury, but those " women of 
spirit," as they are often called, those viragoes, 
that bristle up every time their capricious fancy 
ima 'ines any thing has been said or done which 
is n^t as deferential as it should be, are utterly 
intolerable. They are a libel on their sex. And 
you meet them, in all ranks and grades of socie- 
ty, amid the tinsel and glare of fashionable life, 
as well as in the filth and crime of the dens of 
infamy. If these passionate, revengeful women — 
ladies I must not call them — are disgusting, a 
cold, hard, unrelenting woman is forbidding in 
the extreme. She is a moral ice-berg, chilling 
every thing that comes within the range of her 
influence. To the honor of the sex, let it be 
said, there are comparatively few such women. 
Most of them are ready to forgive injury, and 
forget unkindness. 
Yet, such a bundle of inconsistencies is poor 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 131 

human nature, that even here there is a singular ex- 
ception. Though woman is thus naturally in- 
clined to forgive, toward offenders of her own sex 
she exhibits an unsparing severity. She takes 
into account no mitigating circumstances, looks 
at no overwhelming power of temptation, no sur- 
prisal in an unguarded moment. She sees only 
the crime and the criminal, and on "both she vis- 
its her weighty displeasure. No tears can wash 
away the guilt of the erring one ; no subsequent 
good conduct can win for her again that place in 
the confidence of her sister, which, by one fatal 
misstep she forfeited, — and forfeited forever. 
Man may be melted by her grief and anguish, he 
. may be re-assured by her reformation, but gentle 
woman has for her always the same stony face, 
the same adamantine heart. This is true, gene- 
rally, of all the offences by which woman loses 
her place in society. But there is a class of 
transgressions, or rather transgressors, in the 
treatment of whom woman is, in my judgment, 
peculiarly unjust. I know the morbid sensitive- 
ness which rules our country would forbid my 
speaking on this topic. I can pay no deference 
to such mawkish delicacy. To the pure, all things 
are pure, and they who squirm most under what 
I am about to say, will be the most corrupt. I 
say, then, plainly, that woman has no charity for 
those of her sex, who offend against the great law 



132 SERMONS ON 

of purity. Here, she never forgives, she never 
forgets. Let an unsuspecting girl yield to the 
wily arts of the seducer, and she is ruined forev- 
er. The brand is on her forehead, and nothing 
can efface it. But the vile betrayer, that villain 
of all villains, a earth's most abhorred, God's 
most abandoned, hell's most damned," is received, 
aye, welcomed. Christian mothers, — I hope 
Christian fathers seldom do — but Christian 
mothers court for their daughters the society of 
these men, reeking with the filth of vice, and rot- 
ten to their very heart's core with corruption. 
But the poor, deluded victim, is driven out with 
the mark upon her forehead, deeper and blacker 
than that of Cain. 

Now, if woman would be simply just, let her 
treat her betrayer as she treats his victim. Let 
her turn away from him with the same horror 
with which she shrinks from the touch of her 
erring sister. I may be mistaken in my belief 
that woman ought to treat the betrayed with 
more gentleness ; but I do know that she sins 
greatly in smiling on the vile seducer. It is no- 
torious, that these men are courted and flattered ; 
that their awful crime is no barrier to their ad- 
mission into good society. To me, such another 
villain as the betrayer of unsuspecting innocence, 
does not darken God's sunshine. Though he 
were my brother, nay, though God should curse 






the lord's prayer. 133 

me with a child so vile and profligate, I must 
shrink from him with horror. 

It may be that, having been, by the Providence 
of God, in the very riot and hot-blood of youth, 
constituted the protector of an only sister, I feel 
too strongly on this point ; but I must say, I 
have often thought, if there is any criminal for 
whom no city of refuge on earth should open its 
gates, on whom the law should visit its most un- 
sparing severity, it is the seducer. Did I not know 
that God was omnipotent, I should almost doubt 
whether hell itself had a punishment that could 
parallel the enormity of such guilt. 

But let us not forget who it is that has said, 
" Vengeance is mine, I will repay." And even 
this criminal, if he turn again, saying, " I repent," 
is to be forgiven. But this is not the way in 
which woman treats such offenders. She spurns 
her repentant sister, while she smiles upon the 
seducer ; who not only shows no remorse, but 
even glories in the shame and disgrace of his vic- 
tim. Gentle woman will link her fate with his 
for life, while she rejects with disdain the rough 
hand of the farmer or mechanic, who gains his 
livelihood by honest toil. Let her at least, with 
even-handed justice, commend the same bitter 
chalice to the lips of the betrayer ; and, as the 
minister of him who said to a weeping penitent, 
" Neither do I condemn thee : go and sin no 



134 SERMONS ON 

more," may I not go still further ? This trans- 
action I have just referred to, seems to me to 
have been left on record for the special purpose 
of silencing that prudish modesty, and rebuking 
that heartless severity, which turns away with 
contempt from an erring woman. He who did 
no sin, neither was guile found in his mouth, who 
was holy, harmless and undefiled; he could say, 
11 Neither do I condemn thee : go and sin no 
more." Shall not, then, woman look with pity 
on her fallen sister % I do not ask for impunity 
to crime ; I do not plead the cause of the bold 
and unabashed, who glory in their shame, and 
flaunt their crime in the open face of day. I do 
not say, let them be treated with the same respect 
as if there were no stain upon their character. 
May the time never come in American society, 
when a woman can be so false to every instinct 
of her sex — can so violate every obligation she 
owes to God and man, as to give herself up to the 
dominion of lust, and yet retain her place among 
her fellows. 

But I plead for the poor creature, deceived 
and betrayed by a fiend in human shape. Give 
her a chance to redeem her character : say to her, 
as Jesus did, " Go, and sin no more.' 3 Do 
not drive her out to herd with the shameless and 
the abandoned. Remember this prayer of your 



the lord's prayer. 135 

childhood, " Forgive us our trespasses, as we for- 
give those who trespass against us." 

I gladly turn away from this sad topic, with 
which we have seldom any particular concern, to 
remind you that our Lord here speaks of the for- 
giveness of offences personal to ourselves. " For- 
give us our trespasses, as we forgive those who 
trespass against us." 

Many a person who can, with comparative ease, 
overlook transgressions of the law of God or man, 
find it difficult, or, as they sometimes say, im- 
possible, to forgive and forget those petty little 
offences which are every day committed against 
us individually. The disrespect, the rudeness, 
the harshness, the neglect, intentional or unin- 
tentional, with which he is treated, or fancies he 
is treated, rankles long in his heart. 

Remember, my dear brother, for I cannot re- 
peat this too often, that we are to forgive those 
who trespass against us. Especially would I 
press the lesson now, as we are on the eve of a 
great political excitement, as intense, perhaps, as 
any that have preceded it. Certainly the bitter- 
ness of sectional strife will be infused into the 
coming contest more largely than ever before. 

It becomes every Christian, under such cir- 
cumstances, to take heed to himself. Whichever 
side you may espouse, there are abundance of 
abusive epithets in store, and multitudes ready 



136 SERMONS ON 

to apply them to you. Your Christian character 
may even be questioned, your motives aspersed, 
and you yourself accounted the filth and off- 
scouring of the earth. 

Do I therefore advise you to preserve a strict 
neutrality in the coming contest % I counsel you 
to no such moral cowardice. Wo to our nation, 
when abuse and slander can so terrify good men 
as to keep them from bringing their influence to 
bear upon its government. Choose your ground 
well and wisely, and then maintain it in the fear 
of God. "In your patience possess your souls." 
" See that none render railing for railing, but con- 
trariwise." " Forgive those who trespass against 
you, as you would yourself be forgiven." 

Though it does not come logically within the 
scope of my present discourse, let me entreat you 
to be careful lest you trespass against others. 
Be like the Psalmist of old, who purposed that 
his mouth should not transgress. Take heed to 
your ways, that you sin not with your tongue. 
Above all, let not alienation of heart invade the 
Church of God. Let the followers of Christ 
stand together, and say to the raging waters of 
clamor, and wrath, and bitterness, and evil speak- 
ing, thus far shall you go, and no farther. 

I would have you notice particularly that our 
forgiveness of others, is to be the measure of our 
own : " As we forgive those who trespass against 



the lord's prayer. 137 

us." How important that when we pray this 
prayer, we know what we are saying. He who 
goes to God with a hard, relentless heart, asks 
his Heavenly Father to turn away from him with 
the same contemptuous disdain with which he re- 
jects his fellow man. This prayer in the mouth 
of a revengeful, unforgiving person, is a most 
dreadful imprecation of God's righteous vengeance 
on himself. And be careful that the pardon you 
extend to others is not tardy and reluctant, 
wrung from you by many prayers and tears. Do 
not, as Lord Bacon says in one of his touching 
prayers, " Let the sun almost go down upon your 
wrath." Oh ! if we who are here before God to- 
day would only go out into the world to exem- 
plify the spirit of this prayer, what a change it 
would work in our lives, and in the lives of those 
around us ; for seeing our good works, they 
would be won, by our good conversation, to glo- 
rify our Father in Heaven. 

I have repeatedly called your attention to the 
correct philosophy of this prayer, I do not think 
it out of place to do so, for these things show 
that he who taught us this prayer, knew what was 
in man, and that his teachings harmonize with our 
daily experience. In reference to this petition, 
we can discern this harmony. Every careful ob- 
server must have remarked a deep and intimate 
connection between a sense of our own sinfulness, 
j 



1S8 SEJLMONS OX 

and a readiness to forgive others. Both in the 1 
Church and the world, the proud Pharisee, who 
trusts in himself, is most ready to despise others, 
and will treat them with the utmost severity. While 
on the other hand, he who is the most fully aware 
of his own unworthiness in the sight of God, is 
most ready to throw the mantle of charity over 
the failing of his fellows. Conscious that he 
himself owes the Master ten thousand talents, 
he cannot, especially if he feel that he has been 
freely forgiven, treat his brother roughly for a 
debt of a hundred pence. 

We see in this the justice of our Savior's em- 
phatic repetition, at the close of this prayer, of 
the sentiment of this particular request. u For if 
ye forgive not men their trespasses, neither will 
your Father forgive you." For the possession of 
this forgiving spirit is, as I have before remarked, 
one of the best possible evidences of a proper 
sense of our own great guilt, and such a sense of 
guilt will always teach one charity. 

Finally, I would remark, that as the petition 
we last considered was peculiarly appropriate to 
the beginning of the day, this is equally so to its 
close. How eminently proper, when the harsh 
noises of the day are gone, and the silence and 
the calm of night come, that you should gather 
round your family altar, the loved and the loving, 



the lord's prayer. 139 

and say, " Forgive us our trespasses, as we for- 
give those who trespass against us." 

Such be our practice and spirit, my fellow sin- 
ners, all needing every day forgiveness from God 
and from each other. Let not the sun go down 
upon your wrath. Let the lullaby that soothes 
your home to sleep, be that lyric of the Christian 
poet : 

u Forgive me, Lord, for thy dear Son, 
The ills that 1 this day have done ; 
That with myself, the world, and thee, 
I, ere I sleep, at peace may be." 



SERMON VII. 



And lead us not into temptation. — Matt. 6 : 13. 

Having prayed for forgiveness for the past, it 
is natural and proper that we should ask for se- 
curity for the future. There is evidently need of 
this. The world is a scene of probation, and it 
is, of course, necessary that we should undergo 
some trials. We sometimes hear persons com- 
plain of God's testing the disposition of our first 
parents in the garden of Eden, but in no other 
way could their obedience have been shown. 
And the trial to which they were subjected was 
so simple and direct, it was so little that they 
were required to do, that we ought rather to ad- 
mire the compassion of God than to complain of 
his injustice. 

Temptation, the opportunity of doing wrong, 
is still necessary to the perfection of our charac- 
ter. We here pray that God will so arrange the 
future that we shall have no severer trial than is 
necessary for our good. We recognize and ac- 
cept our probationary condition ; but conscious of 
our frailty, we ask Him who knows our frame to 
remember that we are but dust, and not to suffer 



THE LORD'S PRAYER, 141 

us to be tempted above what we can bear. And 
there is no impropriety in this ; for we do not live 
tinder the rule of blind fatalism, but of a most 
holy, wise, and powerful Father, whose " eyes are 
over the righteous, and whose ears are open to 
their cry." 

There is in this petition an implied, but none 
the less evident rebuke of that rash and reckless 
running in the way of temptation, from which so 
much mischief has flowed. Most people have 
such an entire confidence in their strength of pur- 
pose, that they do not hesitate, to put themselves 
in situations of great exposure. This is charac- 
ter' stic of men of the world, and of young men 
in particular. They are not afraid : they can take 
care of themselves. They can hang around gro- 
ceries, and handle cards, and not become drunk- 
ards or gamblers. Alas ! how many of these 
boastful youths find their way to the gutter and 
the dungeon. The ruin of thousands is owing 
to their failure to keep themselves, and to ask 
G-od to keep them, out of the way of temptation. 
Yet this failure is the natural result of their reli- 
gious opinions ; and is another evidence of the 
fact that a man's practice depends upon his be- 
lief. The current belief of the world is, that 
they can protect themselves, — that they do not 
need the help of G-od ; and so they do not ask 
him not to lead them into temptation. Nay, 



142 SERMONS ON 

they run greedily in the way of evil, never doubt- 
ing their own powers. Ah ! if they had only 
distrusted themselves, and gone to God for help, 
they would have proved the truth of that saying 
of the apostle, " When I am weak, then am I 
Strong." 

It may be well for any of you, who pride your- 
selves upon your morality, who are sure of your 
ability to take care of yourselves, from the fact 
that you have kept yourselves pure hitherto; it 
may be worth while for any of you here, who rely 
upon your own morality, to inquire how much of 
this goodness is owing to God's having, unasked, 
kept you out of the way of temptation. You are, we 
will suppose, and I would not bate the tithe of a 
hair from your virtues, you are honest in all your 
dealings, owing no man, defrauding no man. But 
will you dare to say that if you had been tempted 
more severely, you would not have fallen. Perhaps 
you have never been in real pressing need of 
money, with an opportunity of obtaining it by 
dishonest or dishonorable means, and do not know 
how the cries of wife and children, and the fear 
of want, may goad one on to frenzy. You are 
moral and virtuous. But you have always been 
shielded from fierce assaults of the tempter. . Can 
you take any credit to yourself for this accidental 
goodness ? Ought you not rather to praise God, 
to whose mercy you owe it all ? For my own 



THE LORD'S PRAYER; 143 

part, I do not hesitate to say, with the great apos- 
tle. By the grace of God I am what I am. I can 
see many a point at which I might have turned, 
aside to irretrievable ruin, had not his 

" Arm unseen, conveyed me safe, 
And led me up to man." 

The theology of the world, their views of 
man's dependence upon God, and God's control 
over man, being such, it is not to be wondered at 
that they are rash and self-confident. But the 
Church, amid ail her diversities, has recognized, 
at least in her devotions, God's control of our 
feelings and actions. It is a peculiar doctrine of 
our Church, at least it is so considered, that God 
has such control over us, that we may properly 
pray, " Lead us not into temptation;" and that 
we are so enfeebled, so prone to evil, that we 
need to avoid, so far as the providence of God 
will allow, all occasion of sin. Yet there are 
many among us, who, though they say, and per- 
haps really ask, " Lead us not into temptation," 
do yet, by their neglect of that other saying of 
our Lord, " Watch and pray, lest ye enter into 
temptation," betray a great want of that con- 
sciousness of weakness, which alone can give 
earnestness to the petition we are now consider- 
ing. The reason why we are reckless in exposing 
ourselves, and at the same time so cold and formal 
in our prayers, that God would not lead us into 



144 SERMONS ON 

temptation is, that we have too much confidence 
in our own strength. We are all naturally in- 
clined to make this sad mistake. But I think 
youthful Christians, and Christians in the "begin- 
ning of their religious life, are most apt to fall 
into it. Persuaded of their ability to carry out 
their resolutions, or at least over confident, they 
do not feel the necessity of surrounding them- 
selves with every defence, of putting on the whole 
armor of God, and avoiding every unnecessary 
temptation. 

To you who are in the beginning of your 
Christian life, I would say. you need every source 
of strength within your reach. Daily prayer to 
Grod, daily reading and meditating upon his word, 
conversation with the devout as often as practi- 
cable, and the social prayer meeting, you ought 
by no means to neglect. Do not, I beseech you, 
follow the evil and dangerous example of those 
who, older in life and religious profession, grieve 
the hearts of their pastor and fellow Christians, 
as well as weaken their own spiritual strength, by 
neglecting these means of grace. And do not go 
unnecessarily in the way of temptation. Do not 
find your friends and associates exclusively or 
principally among the worldly-minded and irreli- 
gious. Do not seek your pleasures ordinarily in 
places where it is understood that religion is a 
forbidden topic, or among those who are in the 



the lord's prayer. 145 

habit of treating it lightly. Such a course is ex- 
ceedingly dangerous. Many a young Christian, 
who set out with every prospect of leading a holy 
lifa, and who did run well for a time, has in this 
way gone back, and walked in the ways of God no 
more ; or has degenerated into a mere professor 
of religion, regular at church and at the com- 
munion table, but known at no other place, and 
recognized in no other manner as a servant of the 
Lord. 

But if you should not come to such a sad end 
as this, by neglecting to watch and pray lest you 
enter into temptation, you may well fear that 
God will lead you into it as he did David and 
Peter, to show you your own weakness. To cure 
you of your over-confidence, he will let you fall 
into some great, and it may be, disgraceful sin. 
And with all your care and prudence, you will 
be subjected to trials enough to test your virtue. 
You need not, for instance, seek the society of 
passionate and insulting people to prove your 
control over your own temper. You will have 
opportunities enough of showing this, with every 
lawful and Christian precaution you may take 
to avoid contact with wicked and unreasonable 
men. 

u Seek not temptation, then, which to avoid, 

Were better trial will come unsought. 

Would'st thou approve thy constancy, 
Approve first thy obedience.*' 



145 SERMONS ON 

There is no class of persons to whom this 
prayer is more appropriate than to parents. No 
one can tell the fate of the children you are train- 
ing up. However long you may be spared, and 
however carefully you may guard them, the time 
will come when you must send them out into the 
world to fight for themselves the battle of life. 
And there is not on the records of human 
guilt a solitary sin into which your children may 
not fall. The men and women, for there are 
both, now dwelling lonely and apart in dungeons, or 
herding together in the haunts of vice and crime, 
were some of them the children of pious parents, 
though most of them came from such praycrless 
homes as I fear many of you inhabit. The as- 
sassin, whose very name thrills jour soul with 
horror, was once a little child, as peaceful and 
happy as any of yours. Your boy, whose bright 
eye and beaming face give promise of a noble 
manhood, may live only to bring down your gray 
hairs with sorrow to the grave, or to burden you 
with a heart that, like a bruised reed, is waiting to 
be broken. Your daughter may find her dwelling- 
place for life in — ■ 



« those homes of sin and shame, 

Where Satan shows his cloven foot, 
But hides his titled name." 

How, then, should you pray to God not to lead 
them into temptation, lest they be tempted above 



the lord's prayer. 147 

what the j can bear. And I would , in reference 
to this topic, address myself particularly to irre- 
ligious fathers. Most men prefer that the mother, 
of their children should be devout and pious. 
Indeed, many profane, ungodly men glory not a 
little in the religion of their wives. They would 
be shocked at the thought of these latter being 
the same sneering, blasphemous skeptics they are 
themselves. They feel, and they are right, that 
humble, unaffected piety, is the crowning grace 
of woman's character ; that their homes are safer 
for the religion of their wives. They feel that 
their children will be more likely to be brought 
up so they shall not disgrace the name they bear. 
But while they thus value the piety of their 
wives, they themselves cast off fear, and restrain 
prayer before Grod ? or it may be, are profane and 
vicious. 

I shall not stop here to show how honorable it 
is to be a Christian, nor to expose the mistake 
of those who think it unmanly to pray and read 
the Bible. I simply content myself now with 
assuring irreligious men that their children need 
their prayers and their protection. They need 
every breast-work that can be thrown up around 
them — every barrier that can be interposed be- 
tween them and evil. The prayers and teachings 
of their mothers may do much, weakened though 
they be by your conversation, and contradicted 



148 SERMONS ON 

by your practice. But how much more might 
they effect if seconded by your prayers and ex- 
ample. Can you think of letting your children 
grow up in a world so full of snares and dangers, 
without often asking God to shield and guide 
them 1 

But if we thus condemn those who, with all 
their watching, fail to pray, what shall we say of 
parents who neither watch nor pray, or who de- 
stroy the efficacy of their prayers by their heed- 
lessness ? How shall we find language strong 
enough to condemn those whose boys roam our 
streets at will, learning all the filth and blasphe- 
my that even Sodom knew, making night hideous 
with their noise, and the day loathsome with their 
oaths and vulgarity % What can we say to the 
mothers who never know, and it would seem never 
care, what books their daughters read, what com- 
pany they keep ? Who deck them in costly fine- 
ry, and send them, or weakly suffer them, to force 
their way into the ball-room, where sometimes 
'nice is too lascivious to be thought of in this 
sacred place, and where always the mother cannot 
tell how polluted may be the hand her daughter 
will clasp, or how treacherous the arm upon which 
she will lean % How can such parents pray for 
their children, or with them, at the family altar, 
" lead us not into temptation?" I cannot be- 
lieve they often do. 



149 

There is a mistake sometimes made by parents 
in another direction, though not so common, nor 
by any means so dangerous as the guilty heed- 
lessness which Ave have been considering. It is 
shutting up their children as far as possible from 
all intercourse with others, never letting them go 
from under the eye of their parents or some su- 
perior, and thus keeping them in profound igno- 
rance of the world and its snares. But this 
makes their moral character too frail and delicate 
for use. Robustness of soul must be obtained 
in the same way with that of the body, by exer- 
cise. You would not coop your child up in a hot 
room and wrap him up in blankets, for fear he would 
take cold, and thus make him almost certain to, 
whenever a clear, strong breeze blows on faiml 
You would not keep him from moving a muscle, 
for fear he should dislocate his arm, or sprain his 
ankle, and thus render sure his breaking down 
entirely when any moderate exertion was abso- 
lutely required of him. Do not, then, prohibit 
your children from all intercourse with other 
children. Choose for them the best companions, 
just as you would choose the safest sports and 
employments; for they will learn evil enough from 
them. And remember that you are to choose for 
them, and not they for themselves. Do not keep 
them always in your sight, but give them the best 
instruction you can ; and then send them out to 



1.30 SERMONS ON 

practice on it. praying God to keep them. Do 
not, like the half- drowned foolish fellow in the 
Greek fable, vow they shall not touch the water 
until they have learned to swim; Irat teach them 
to swim, and give them trusty companions, and 
you have done your part to keep them from going 
down into the depths of infamy that underlie the 
sea of life. God will hear your prayers and do his. 
Cultivate in your children the habit of confi- 
ding in you, telling you what they see and hear, 
that you may teach them to discriminate between 
good and evil. It is painful to think what a 
chasm generally yawns between the child and its 
parents ; how much evil the former is learning, 
and sometimes in utter ignorance of its danger- 
ous tendency : while the latter are equally igno- 
rant that their child is receiving such instruction, 
simply because this confiding disposition has nev- 
er been cherished. Children should be- brought 
up, and they may be, to tell their parents what- 
ever transpires in their intercourse with others, 
and to understand that whatever they are told not 
to tell to their parents is certainly wrong. And 
if, in spite of all your care, or which is far more 
likely, through your carelessness, you have a 
child that will conceal from or deceive you, I 
charge you solemnly in the sight of God to break 
up that habit, at whatever cost. Xo surer basis 
could be laid for the ruin of your child. He or 



the lord's prater. 151 

she will be like the apples of Soclom, fair without ? 
"but rottenness within, They will keep you in 
ignorance of their evil courses, while rumor, with 
her hundred tongues, publishes them on every 
street and in every corner. It is sad to think, to 
how many Christian fathers and mothers the 
knowledge of their children's sins comes, alas ! 
too late, like a thunderbolt from a clear sky, 
simply because they have never accustomed their 
children to tell what they saw and heard. While 
they slept, the enemy sowed tares in the hearts 
of their sons and daughters. 

Another capital mistake in this hot-bed moral 
culture, and I have already alluded to it, is keep- 
ing children in profound ignorance of the world 
and its snares. This is done by some parents 
through guilty carelessness. They never find 
time; they are too busy making money or dress- 
es ; they cannot stop to talk about such things. 
But those to whom I now address myself, do it 
from mistaken care. They fear that they shall 
thus give their children a knowledge of evil 
they would not otherwise acquire, and so lead 
them into temptation. You may be sure they 
will learn enough of such things long before 
people would generally suspect them ; and 
the wisest thing you can do is to forestall 
the devil and his agents. I have no doubt it 
is your duty to inform your children to some 



152 SERMONS Off 

extent of the ways of the world. Yet it is diffi- 
cult to say precisely how far you ought to go in 
this. There are. unquestionably, form sand phases 
of vice of which they had better be entirely ig- 
norant. Such books as the " Pirate's Own Book," 
confessions of murderers, and the " Hot Corn 
Stories," which some misguided religious people 
have praised, ought to be prohibited to children, 
because they familiarize them with a grade of so- 
ciety and a kind of life of which they had better 
never dream. The man who takes his children 
frequently to the brothel, the gambling hell, or 
the circus, or is always talking of the scenes 
there enacted, and describing them with great 
accuracy, does his children much harm. He 
makes them fully acquainted with that of which 
the less they know the better. 

" Vice is a monster of such frightful mien, 
That to be hated, needs but to be seen ; 
But seen too oft, familiar with her face. 
We first endure, then pity, then embrace." 

Yet fore-warned is fore-armed ; and you will 
make a sad mistake, if you do not put your child 
on his guard against the snares that will beset 
his daily path. 

I would especially press this duty upon moth- 
ers ; for I fear they greatly neglect it. What 
I have said of the general topic applies to this 



the lord's prayer, 153 

particular point. You need not fear giving your 
daughters a knowledge of evil, which they would 
acquire in no other way. They will certainly 
learn from others, sooner or later, and generally 
long before you suspect. You are in little dan- 
ger in beginning too early. Talk to them kindly 
and plainly, delicately of course. A woman 
should never talk otherwise, even to her own sex. 
To thus guide and instruct your daughters is not 
merely advisable, it is a solemn duty, which you 
ought, on no account, and for no pretext, to neg- 
lect. Many a poor girl, by such timely precau- 
tion, might have been saved from hopeless ruin. 

Bear with me while I apply the general princi- 
ples I have laid down, to a particular topic, in re- 
gard to which I am often consulted. Some pa- 
rents refuse to send their children to school at 
home, and many hesitate about sending them 
abroad. It is, I acknowledge, a dangerous ex- 
periment in either case. I saw so much, during 
live years' experience as a teacher, of the corrupt- 
ing influence of passionate, ill-governed children 
upon those who had been better trained, even 
when the latter were still under the eye of their 
parents, during their leisure hours, that I was 
for a long time of the opinion that where parents 
could give any tolerable kind of instruction to 
their children, they had better not send them to 
school. But I am inclined to reverse that decis- 



154 SERMONS OX 

ion ; for much is gained by the contact of mind 
with mind. Children learn so much faster when 
grouped together ; and the school is a little world ; 
they meet there, on a small scale, the very forces 
they must encounter ; they acquire the very pow- 
ers of resistance they will need in after life ; and 
so I would send them to school, taking the fol- 
lowing precautions. Do not send them too' 
early. Let them be at least seven years old, so 
that their character shall have acquired some 
force and consistence. Give them, up to that 
time, as far as possible, a correct moral training. 
Habituate them to telling you what is said and 
done by their playmates at school. Do not leave 
it for chance to bring out the wickedness they 
may have witnessed, but let them be so accus- 
tomed to confide in you, that they will think of 
nothing but telling you. Send them to a good 
teacher. Beware of the paltry economy of seek- 
ing the cheapest. Send them to a teacher who 
will watch over their morals, and guard with 
sleepless vigilance against every influence that 
would corrupt them, if you can find such an one. 
I know such teachers are like angels' visits, not 
only because they are few and far between, but 
because they are angels of mercy to your children. 
Their price is above rubies, — silver should not be 
weighed for the price thereof. Observe your 
children when at home ; narrowly but not, suspi- 



the lord's prayer, 155 

ciously. "Watch for the rising scab of any moral 
leprosy, that you may check it at the outset. 

After a child has been thus sent to school at 
home till he is at least fourteen or fifteen, I see 
nothing wrong, indeed it is sometimes advisable, 
to send him abroad, taking similar precautions. 
Send him to a good teacher, good in the sense I 
have already referred to. Provide for him a 
cheerful home among the devout. Secure him, 
so far as practicable, good . companions. Accus- 
tom him still to tell you what his associates and 
amusements are. Observe him when at home, 
and strive to stop every beginning of evil. Above 
all, throughout his whole career, at home and 
abroad, pray often, and teach him to pray, " lead 
us not into temptation." Again I say, you have 
done your part. God will hear your prayers and 
do his. Shall he not hear his own elect, who cry 
day and night unto him, though he bear long with 
them? 

Let me say, before I leave this subject, see to 
it that whatever instruction you give, be it less 
or more, is correct. Do not give your children 
false views of life, or endeavor to found their op- 
position to evil on false grounds. If you send 
them away to school, do not lead them to sup- 
pose that those who mislead them will be the rude 
and ragged loafers on the streets, or that it is the 
low groceries they must avoid, but that the sa- 



156 SERMONS OX 

loons and oyster-cellars are the most dangerous 
places ; and that the young and lively who are 
themselves on the road to ruin, are the most dan- 
gerous companions. Beware of inoculating them 
with your own unfounded prejudices. If you 
would keep them out of the ball-room, and you 
all know that I think it a dangerous place, do not 
teach them to look upon dancing as an awful 
crime, or to suppose that they will meet in the 
ball-room only with repulsive people. But let 
them know that such midnight orgies are ruinous 
to the health of their bodies ; that disregard of God 
and dislike of religion reign there ; and that above 
all, the seducer prowls there for his victim. Would 
you inspire them with disgust towards the circus ? 
It is the most proper feeling they could have. 
Do not represent it to them as some huge, mis- 
shapen creature like the Centaur of the Greek 
mythology, with the head of a man ending in the 
body of a horse. Let them know something 
about it. You might even permit them to see 
its glare and tinsel; you might refresh them with 
the coarse, vulgar wit of the clown, and the deli- 
cate attitudes of the immaculate artists. But 
teach them that the Masters and Misses who per- 
form these surprising feats are either children 
kidnapped from their parents, or homeless orphans, 
picked up on the street and compelled, by brutal 
cruelty, to amuse parents and children who come 



the lord's prayer. 157 

from homes generally of happiness and sometimes 
of refinement, to witness the sport. Teach your 
daughters what monsters of vice these vagabond 
showmen are, how utterly unworthy to minister 
to the amusement or receive the applause of a 
virtuous woman. 

Would you guard them against the seductive 
influences of card-playing ? It is desirable that 
you should. Do not make them believe that it is 
a sin to know one card from another, or that no 
one but vile and abandoned people play, Do not 
teach them to be afraid of their pocket-book in 
the company of all who play. They will soon 
learn that this is all a mistake. Take them into 
the gambling-hell, show them the haggard face 
and blood-shot eye of the ruined man. Tell 
them that the fierce, desperate men around them 
began their career by playing with a sister or a 
friend ; that fair, white hands wove the first meshes 
of the net in which they are entangled. Let 
your children know that though there is no sin in 
handling cards, yet he who begins, can never tell 
where he will end. To say the least, he puts 
himself in the way of danger ; he plays with an 
asp, and lays his hand on a cockatrice's den. Do 
you wish they may never contract the vile habit 
of theatre-going, by which so many young people 
have been ruined. I do not say you should 
take them there once, and when they have seen 



158 SEPwMONS ON 

all its apparent splendor, that you should then 
unveil to theui the corruption and vice, which I 
will not say sleep, but rather riot beneath. Many 
judicious people think this is the best way. I 
have not yet made up my mind that you should 
go that far, but I do say, whatever you tell them, 
let it be the truth. Do not let them imagine a 
theatre is a hideous place, full of fierce men and 
coarse, ill-mannered women, lest if they ever are 
decoyed in there, as some time or other they will 
be very likely to be, and find a fine, largo room, 
flooded with light, and filled with fashionably- 
dressed, apparently respectable, quiet, well-be- 
haved people, they will think their pious old 
father and mother were very good, well-meaning 
sort of people, but they were sadly ignorant what 
a nice place a theatre was, or they never would 
have said so much against going there. If you 
would save your children from the evil that is in 
the world, especially from those forms of it to 
which I have just alluded, (and surely there is no 
Christian parent here, to say the least, who does 
not.) teach them that card-playing is the most 
successful snare, and the circus and the theatre 
are the favorite hunting ground of the thief, the 
gambler, of her whose steps take hold on hell, and 
of every other recruiting officer of the great ene- 
my of God and man. 

The question is often asked, why so many 



the lord's prayer. 159 

children of pious parents, and especially of min- 
isters, who seem to have been trained up in the 
way they should go, do yet depart from it. This 
is owing, of course, to a variety of causes. One 
of them, and a prominent one is, I think, that 
the false views of the danger I have been con- 
demning are inculcated upon them. This is done 
with the best of intentions, no doubt, but its effects 
are none the less injurious. These young people 
find that their parents were mistaken — that the 
ball-room, the theatre, and a game of cards are 
very different things from what they were taught 
to suppose. And some of them never discover what 
the real dangers are, until they are given up en- 
tirely to the power of evil habits. Though a 
majority of them, I believe, sated with these 
frivolities, finding them not at all to be compared 
with the pure and peaceful pleasures of a pious 
home, do at last return to the shepherd and bishop 
of their souls. Let Christian parents krow 
whereof they alnrm, if they would keep their 
children out of temptation. 

If there is any character who resembles the 
devil, it is the tempter. He who would, for the 
sake of gain or gratification, deliberately lead his 
fellow men into evils is essentially fiendish. It 
makes little difference in his guilt, and none at 
all in the results, whether he does it without 
thinking; he ought to think. When this prayer, 



160 SERMONS ON 

il lead us not into temptation," is addressed to 
men ; when they see that in the providence of God, 
the virtue and happiness of their fellow creatures 
are to a greater or less extent in their power ; 
ought they not to take heecl to these things ? Do 
you say this prayer cannot be addressed to men ? 
It often is, and alas ! is often disregarded. It 
comes to-day to you who are young, from those pious 
parents whose children you are teaching to dese- 
crate the Sabbath, and neglect the house of God; in 
whose presence you are ridiculing the religion of 
their parents, and thus teaching them to sneer. It 
comes to those, let me not call them men, who 
are mean enough and base enough to teach little 
boys to swear, and to be obscene ; who laugh at 
the little fellows mouthing their mighty oaths, 
and retailing with engaging, but to one who loves 
them, distressing archness, the low slang they have 
learned in the bar-room and grocery. 

It has long come with earnestness amounting 
to agony, from the drunkard and the drunkard's 
wife, to the men who have their living by the craft 
of tempting to every conceivable crime, the poor 
slave of a depraved appetit2. They have long 
treated this prayer with contempt. It comes to 
them no longer. But men and women of the 
state of Indiana, it comes to you, louder and 
wilder than it ever fell before upon mortal ear, 
The poor drunkard-, with all the elements of & 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 161 

noble soul within him yet, though shattered sadly 
by the assaults of intemperance, comes and 
begs you, with such entreaty as might move the. 
" pain'dst fiend below" to keep this deadly, be- 
witching poison out of his sight, and give him a 
fair chance to be a man again. His wife, who has 
clung to him through all his downward career, 
and clings to him yet more closely as others be- 
gin to desert, lifts her pleading face. His 
children, frozen in the very flush of youth into 
cold, heartless, spiritless things, not daring to 
look happier children in the face, join their 
shrill cries, and laying hold of you with their 
little withered hands, as you rush on in the mad 
career of party strife, in such a chorus of wo as 
earth never heard before, they cry out to you, 
" You have the power, Oh, do not lead us into 
temptation ; put your foot on this traffic, and crush 
it out of existence." You cannot hear them. 
The syren of party sings too delicious a song in 
your ears. It is all well enough to help the 
poor miserable wretches ; but there is some other 
great project with which they must not interfere ; 
they can wait till next year. The roar of artille- 
ry, and the voice of rejoicing that celebrates the 
success of your favorite measure, will drown out 
of your ear the wail of the tempted. You can- 
not hear them, but God can hear them. He will 
arise, not only for the passionate cry, but even for 



162 SERMONS ON 

the sighing of the needy. His ears are always 
open, and I turn to him : " Holy Father, let 
them not be led into temptation. Do thou come to 
their help, for thine is the kingdom, and power. 
And when this cursed traffic is driven from the 
land, thine shall be the glory, forever and ever. 
Amen." 



SERMON VIII. 



But deliver us from evil. — Matt. 6 : 13. 

The origin of evil has been a fruitful subject of 
dispute. The philosophers and theologians of 
every age, have perplexed themselves in regard 
to it. The only possible solution of this prob- 
lem, at least in our present condition, is that giv- 
en in our Confession of Faith : that " God was 
pleased, according to his wise and holy counsel, 
to permit" it, " having purposed to order it to his 
own glory."* It would have been better for mul- 
titudes who have disquieted themselves with 
speculations on this topic, if, content with thus 
resolving all their difficulties into the ultimate 
fact of the Divine permission, 'they had been more 
solicitous to discover the means of avoiding and 
removing evil. 

Evil is in the world, and it cannot be always 
eluded. " It must needs be that offences come." 
No prudence, however thoughtful, no care, how- 
ever unwearied, can deliver us fully from the con- 
sequences of the fall, whether they come in the 
form of physical or moral evil. What, then, is 

* Conf, of Faith ; Chap. 6, Sec. 1, 



164 SERMONS ON 

it best for us to do ? Shall we cast off fear, re- 
nounce the guidance of reason, and resolve to 
avoid no danger, because we cannot escape all % 
Every one must see the folly of such a course. 
Yet this is the logic of some reckless people, who 
refuse to take any precaution, because all precau- 
tions are at times unavailing. They will not 
have any care of their health, because men are 
sure to die ; or they have known some persons 
very prudent and watchful on this point, and they 
were sick as often as any one. There are many 
parents who seem to act upon this principle in 
regard to their children. They let them run in 
the street, and associate at will with the evil- 
minded and the vicious, making no effort to re- 
strain them. And when remonstrated with, their 
answer generally is, that it is impossible to se- 
clude children entirely from such influences. I 
am sometimes tempted to think that argument is 
thrown away upon such people. Orght they not 
to see, at a glance, that the fact that evil is so 
general and inevitable, is only an additional and 
more urgent reason why we should use fore- 
thought ; for the more prudent we are, the less 
we shall suffer. 

But shall we, on the other hand, make this cer- 
tainty of encountering evil in some of its forms, 
the ground of a refusal to put forth any activity ? 
Shall our prudence degenerate into cowardice? 



the lord's prayer. 165 

It does with some people. They will not ride 
after a horse for fear it will run away. They will 
not cross the lake or the ocean — nothing could 
tempt them to — lest they should be drowned. 
They will not travel on a rail-car, for fear it would 
run off the track. Now the proper course is, as 
any plain, common-sense man will tell you, to 
take all reasonable precautions, and then do what- 
ever is necessary or desirable to be done. Do not 
pick out a wild horse, and an unskillful driver. 
Do not put to sea in a rotten vessel, or on 
a stormy night, or trust yourself knowingly to a 
drunken engineer. The folly of this excessive 
timidity appears, from the fact that it often ex- 
poses persons to much greater dangers than they 
avoid. You may always travel on foot, if you 
think that the safest ; yet a tree may be blown down 
on you, or a mad dog bite you, when perhaps, if 
you had been travelling in some other, and as you 
think more dangerous mode, you would have es- 
caped them. And of one thing y6u may be sure, 
you cannot, with all your care, escape every evil. 
You may never see water beyond your depth ; 
yet the fire may burn up your house, and burn 
you up in it. Wherever you are, you are envi- 
roned with danger. What can you do, but, after 
having exercised all proper care, commit your 
ways unto God ? 

Some of you, who will think this very good 



166 SERMONS OK 

logic in regard to the things of this life, and who 
constantly act upon it in relation to them, will 
yet demur to it. when applied to our spiritual in- 
terests. But let us see how it will work. You 
refuse, my impenitent friend, to do anything 
toward making your peace with God, for fear you 
will not succeed. You will not start on the road 
to heaven, for fear you will never get there, not- 
withstanding great and precious promises are giv- 
en unto you to encourage you : " Come unto me, 
all ye that are weary and heavy laden, and I will 
give you rest." " Him that coineth to me, I 
will in no wise cast out." Yet you think we 
ought to put forth our activity in the things of 
this life, though God has never given us, either 
in his word or in his providence, any similar as- 
surance of success. And do you lessen your 
spiritual clanger by refusing to do anything ? Do 
you not rather increase it ? Do you not make 
your destruction certain ? Consider the great 
difference between you and those who are so timid 
in regard to worldly affairs. They may escape 
injury by staying at home — they may live a long 
and peaceful life. The only thing they will lose, 
may be a little sight-seeing, for which they will 
be more than compensated by the solid happiness 
of dwelling among their own people. But you, 
by staying away from Christ, are certain to be 
destroyed. You lose everything and gain nothing. 



the lord's prayer. 167 

A little froth instead of the river of the water of 
life ; a paste diamond or two for the pearl of great 
price ; a few tinsel toys for a crown of gold. 
Oh ! how can you be so foolish. Will you not say, 

" I can but perish if I go, 

I am resolved to try 5 
For if 1 stay away, I know 

I must forever die." 

And you, who refuse to make an open profes- 
sion of your secret hope in Christ, because your 
hope is so weak, and you fear you will dishonor 
God, your folly is but little less. Is your faith 
likely to be strengthened by being smothered? 
Is the friend, who, though not able to do much; 
yet defends and assists you, of any less value or 
credit than he who herds with your enemies, and 
is silent when you are abused ? That dangers be- 
set you is true, but Christ has made you many 
promises. " Lo ! I am with you always, even 
unto the end of the world." " No man shall 
pluck you out of my Father's hand." You are 
not to be presumptous. Do not tempt the Lord 
your G-od; do not expose yourself unnecessarily, 
because he has. given his angels charge concerning 
you. li But watch and pray, lest you enter into 
temptation ; and whenever he sses fit to lead you 
into it, his arm will protect, his eye will watch 
over you. 

I presume you are all con vino ad of the neees- 



168 SERMONS OX 

sity of forethought in the affairs of this life. But 
did it ever occur to you that going to God with 
this petition. " Deliver us from evil," is one of 
the first dictates of mere worldly wisdom. I as- 
sert, without hesitation, that he who lives a prayer- 
less life, however prudent he may think himself, 
is of all men most careless. He neglects the 
only sure precaution against an infinite variety of 
evils. You cannot, prayerless man, as you must 
see, know what miasma may lurk in the air ; or 
if you did, you could not protect yourself against 
it. You are utterly ignorant what disease may 
be engendering within you, even now. You can- 
not tell in the morning what accidents may lie 
between you and the setting sun. Danger, dis- 
ease, and death lurk all along your path, and ev- 
ery foot-fall may bring you into some hidden 
snare. How soon may disease, disgrace, or infamy 
worse than death invade your family circle. How 
wise, then, in you to pray this prayer, if you believe 
in a G-od who can protect, and who will hear you ! 
And who does not wish so to believe ? Would 
you not rather adore a being who knows our 
frame, and remembers that we are dust, than one 
who sees 

" With equal eye, as God of all, 
A hero perish, and a sparrow fall f 

who will pay no regard to your entreaties, and 



the lord's prayer. 169 

will not even be touched with a feeling of your 
infirmities ? And how much better that you 
should go forth to your daily toil trusting in God, 
rather than in blind chance or good fortune. Is 
there any comparison between the two, as a source 
of patience and strength ? iC Our rock is not as 
their rock, even our enemies themselves being 
judges." 

Do you not begin to regret your irreligious 
life ? I might have some hope that you could 
be persuaded to ask God to deliver you from 
these physical and social evils to which we are 
all exposed ; but feeling as you now do, it would 
be idle to urge you to pray to be delivered from 
sin, at once the worst of evils, and the source of 
all others. Partly because you think you can de- 
liver yourself, but chiefly because you do not con- 
sider sin any evil. There seem to be two stages 
in the life of an impenitent man ; one in which 
he considers sin a mere trifle, the other in which, 
though somewhat aware of his guilt and danger, 
he still thinks he can save himself. Not but 
that these two feelings run into and modify each 
other. He who has any proper idea of the evil 
of sin, never would think of trying to deliver himself. 
And one reason why men are so contented in their 
sin, taking no pains to understand its nature 
and extent, is, that they imagine they can secure 
their own safety whenever they do set themselves 



170 

at work. Still I think these t 
found in the life of almost every irreligious per- 
son, separated "by more c : ' uiits , 
Most of yen, I apprehen a the first of 
these stages. Sin is no evil from which 
to be delivered. Yon wotdd not like to commit 
any great crime, not b e is ; sin 
God, "but because you would forfeit the : 
your fellow men. or your liberty or life. If the 
standard uf human law or public opinion should 
change, you would conform to m in vio- 
lation of the law of God. Indeed, you do so 
even now. Punishment may seem an evil. 
in order to avoid it, you may "be willing to forego 
some enjoyments, from which you now derive 
much pleasure. But once convince you that 
could still retain them without \ : of being 
punished, and you would never think of abandon- 
ing them. Some of you may even have taken 
up this belief, and L a consequence, al- 
::: many things whieh you know- 
and everybody knows, God has fori 
shows that sin, in itself considered, is no ei 
you. I think it more than likely, that if the 
cholera were in our midst, many of you would in 
the morning ask God to deliver you from it ; or, 
if such a prayer v rd up in y mce. 
in your h i would - m t it But 
the leprosy of sin h md you are ev- 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 171 

ery day exposed to it ; yet you never think of 
asking God to keep you from it ; and when you 
hear such a prayer, you do not respond to it. 

Such, my brethren, is not the Christian's feel- 
ing. To us, sin is the body of death, and we cry, 
" who shall deliver us from it ?" There is nothing 
in our religion to keep us from asking our 
Father in Heaven to keep us from temporal evil . 
Nay, we have the highest encouragement to do 
so, for we have the promise of this life, as well as 
of that which is to come. But let us never for- 
get the infinite superiority of the unseen and the 
eternal. Let us ever say to " the bounteous Giver 
of all good, 

" Thou art, of all thy gifts, thyself the crown ; 
Give what thou wilt, without thee we are poor; • 
And with thee rich, take what thou wilt away. 7; 

The doctrinal teaching of this petition is the 
counterpart of the third: "Thy will be done." 
In that, we confessed our inability as of ourselves 
to do the will of God, and asked that his strength 
might be made perfect in our weakness. In this, 
we acknowledge that we are unable to resist 
temptation, and we beseech him to deliver us ; 
to provide us a way of escape. In the petition 
immediately preceding the one we are now con- 
sidering, we show that being distrustful of our- 
selves, we are not greedy of temptation. In 
this, in praying to be delivered from evil, we not 



172 SERMONS ON 

only confess that we are unable to defend our- 
selves, but remind ourselves that we cannot al- 
ways avoid temptation ; and, indeed, that we 
ought not to. The mere fact that there is dan- 
ger in our path, is not always a sufficient reason 
for a refusal to go forward. Do not let your 
caution degenerate into criminal cowardice. God 
may make it your duty to go into the midst of 
great dangers, both spiritual and temporal. He 
may surround you with bitter enemies, and 
cause you to meet with fierce opposition. Many 
of his chosen people have thus been tried. Be- 
ware of being a spiritual sluggard, saying, u there 
is a lion in the way." Remember that God is 
able to succor them that are tempted, and will, 
with the temptation, provide a way of escape. 

I remarked to parents, in a former Lecture, 
that as they could not always keep their children 
under their own observation, they ought to pray 
to God not to lead them into temptation. I 
would remind you now, that even their Heavenly 
Father will sometimes suffer them to be tried ; 
and you, therefore, need to ask him to deliver 
them, at such times, from evil. How can you 
think of all the snares to which their rashness 
and inexperience must expose them ; of the mul- 
titudes who make shipwreck of this life, to say 
nothing of the life that is to come, without being 
driven to cry mightily to God in their behalf. 



THE LORIES prayer. 173 

Oh, prayerless father and mother, I know not 
whether to think you more foolish or hard-heart- 
ed. You will not ask God, who alone is able, by . 
his Almighty power, to protect and defend your 
child from all peril and harm, both of soul and 
body. You are shocked at the atrocious cruelty 
of those heathen, who carry off their aged pa- 
rents into the wilderness and leave them to die. 
But you, more cruel than they, expose your chil- 
dren to every evil influence the world can exert 
upon them ; thus making certain, so far as you 
can, their eternal death. If you will not pray 
for yourself, I beg you to pray for them. 

" It is better for the children, and for all con- 
nected with them," said a parent to me not long 
since, " that they should die in early life." I 
cannot think so. It is better, so far as we can 
see, that they should die young, than that they 
should live to be miserable or vicious. It is sad 
to think into what a fiendish expression the placid 
face of the child may one day be distorted ; how 
bloated that soft cheek, how dull and leaden that 
bright eye may become. Far better to hide them 
away in an early grave; to give them up in in- 
fancy, to Him who will carry them in his bosom, 
and suffer no stain to soil them, than to keep 
them for the doom of the drunkard or the profli- 
gate. But is it not still more desirable that they 
should live to be useful and happy, the honor 



": 



174 SERMONS ON 

and support of their parents, a pleasure and a 
blessing to all who know them ? There is many 
a modern mother, I am persuaded, with her 
Gracchi, who could not think it better always 
for children to die young. Did the mother of 
George Washington think so ? Yfould any of 
you, if God should count your child worthy to 
put him into the ministry ? No prayer seems to 
me so proper to be offered up for children, as the 
request which occurs in what is called our Lord's 
intercessory prayer. " I pray not that thou 
shoulclest take them out of the world, but that 
thou shoulclest keep them from the evil." "Who 
could kneel down at the bed-side of his child, 
and pray that it might die ? Who so hard- 
hearted, so impious, that he would not pray that 
it might be kept from the evil. At the same 
time, if children die in infancy, or early life, we 
should consider that they are taken away from the 
evil to come. 

It may seem to some who have heard these 
discourses, that I am an officious intermecldler, 
in speaking so often and so plainly of the duties 
of parents to their children. As I shall not 
have occasion to refer to this subject soon again, 
let me vindicate myself here against any such 
captious objectors. The obligation of parents to 
train up their children in the fear of the Lord is 
enforced in both the Old and the New Testa- 



the lord's prayer. 175 

ments, with great plainness and frequency ; and 
though many have out-grown the wisdom of Sol- 
omon and Paul, I still think they had the Spirit 
of the Lord. I am to keep back none of the 
counsel of Grod, and there are many reasons why 
the duty of parents to watch over and pray for 
their children, should, least of all, be neglected 
in the teachings of him who is set over you in 
the Lord. Our blessed Master commends the 
Iambs of the flock, with peculiar emphasis, to the 
watchful care of his under-shepherds. It was 
the first duty which he enjoined upon his repent- 
ant disciple. I should be false to him who has 
put me into the ministry, did I not, upon this 
very point, reprove, rebuke, and exhort, being 
instant in season and out of season. And as a 
watchman on the walls of Zion, charged on the 
peril of my own life to warn the inhabitants of 
the land, when I see danger approaching, I feel 
that I must speak at the present time in no un- 
certain tones. The Presbyterian Church has, if 
I may use such an expression, leaned with all 
her weight upon her baptized children. We have 
looked to them to replenish our ranks ; and 
though occasionally strangers have taken up their 
abode among us, and have always been welcomed, 
3 T et generally we have drawn our recruits from 
those who were born within our gates, and have 
been trained up in our midst. Instead of the 



17G SERMONS 

fathers, these have been the children. We have 
always honored family religion ; we have laid 
great stress upon dedicating children to a cove- 
nant-keeping God in the ordinance of "baptism. 
We have insisted upon family worship, and the 
regular instruction of children at home "by their 
parents ; and to all these, under God, we owe 
much of our prosperity as a Church. 

But I fear that now we are being shorn of our 
strength. It is not that the children of the 
Church go elsewhere. That would not grieve us 
so much, though we prefer to have them in the 
home of their fathers. But they go nowhere, 
save only with the enemies of the cross of Christ. 
The land is full of lamentations over the scarcity 
of candidates for the ministry, and various causes 
have been assigned for this. May not one great 
reason be found in the decay of family religion ? 
Every one has heard of Madame Campan's la- 
conic and oracular reply to Napoleon's question 
as to what France required to make her a great 
nation — " Mothers." The Church wants mothers, 
mothers who will pray with and for their chil- 
dren, " lead us not into temptation, but deliver 
us from evil." 

It has always been the peculiar glory of our 
Church, that her children were well-governed, 
and thoroughly taught. Is not this fast degen- 
erating into an idle boast ? We seem to resemble 



177 

some old Highland clansman, or Spanish gran- 
dee, who lives on his long pedigree, and the fame 
of his ancestry ; too proud to toil, too indolent 
to win a name for himself. For while we still 
hold fast to our ancient boasts and professions, 
we are practically sinking to a level with those 
who avowedly, and of conscience, exercise no 
control over their children, and give them no in- 
struction. It is to be feared, that as we have 
been exalted so high, we shall yet sink into a 
lower deep ; and as we have been so famous for 
our faithfulness, we shall grow into a wider pro- 
verb for our sad and wicked carelessness. 

Do you say there is no ground for these fears ? 
How many households, think you, are there, connec- 
ted with this Church, that are gathered together ev- 
ery Sabbath, as they were in olden time, to study 
the Catechism and the word of God? How 
many that send to the Sabbath-school and the 
prayer meeting a slim and infrequent representa- 
tion? How many that are represented in the 
street on the Lord's day ? These are questions 
which it pains me to ask, and would pain me to 
answer. Yet there can be for us no surer sign 
of desolation and decay, than to see the children 
of the Church not trained up in the way they 
should go, or departing from it. All our learned 
ministry, our wealth and intelligence, the impen- 
etrable logic and Scriptural truth of our doe- 



178 SERMONS ON 

trines, cannot save us, when once these founda- 
tions of family government and instruction are 
out of place. When I see the slightest tremor 
in this bulwark of our Church, I must cry aloud 
and spare not. I know I am not your enemy, 
and I do not believe you will think me so, be- 
cause I tell you the truth. 

The text, " deliver us from evil," will bear an- 
other interpretation, which many eminent critics 
are inclined to give it. The article occurs in the 
original, and this part of speech is never insig- 
nificant or unnecessary in the Greek. A strict 
translation of the passage would be, " deliver us 
from the evil;" by which, many say, we are to 
understand the Evil One, or Satan. The ancient 
fathers all understood it as referring to him, 
though their belief in the agency of evil spirits 
was much more earnest and practical than is 
fashionable now. A passage precisely similar, 
and translated in the same way in our version, is 
that portion of our Lord's intercessory prayer, 
which I have already quoted. " I pray not thou 
shouldest take them out of the world, but that 
thou shouldest keep them from the evil;" and 
this also many critics interpret of the Evil One. 
In Matt. 13: 19, and 1 John 2: 13, the same 
expression occurs in the original ; and it is in 
both cases translated in our version, " the wicked 
one." In the case of the text,it is proper enough 



the lord's prayer. 179 

for us to adopt either translation. That is to 
say, we may pray to God to protect us from the 
various evils to which we are exposed, or we may. 
ask him to deliver us " from the crafts and as- 
saults of the devil." There are many who laugh 
to scorn this latter idea, for they do not believe 
in the existence of any such being. They scout 
the notion as an exploded superstition ; a rem- 
nant of the fables of the dark ages. To settle 
the controversy between them and us, let us be- 
take ourselves to that sure word of prophecy, 
which still shines amid our boasted civilization, 
as a light in a dark place. 

We are told in the history of Job, that Satan 
came before the Lord and accused that good man 
of selfishness and hypocrisy ; and that Job was, 
in consequence, given up to Satan to be tempted 
and tried. But some say this whole book is an 
allegory. Where are the marks of its being alle- 
gorical ? Why not receive it for what it appears 
upon its face to be ; a plain, simple account of 
what actually happened. But they say it is im- 
possible that such a transaction should ever have 
taken place. How do they know that ? Let 
them prove it. The Bible is intended to reveal 
to us what we could not otherwise discover. 
Who shall say that the curtain is not here drawn 
aside, and we permitted for a moment to see what 
is constantly taking place in the presence of God ? 



ISO SERMONS )N 

Who shall say. when a servant of the Lord is 
stripped and tormented, as is sometimes the case, 
that the devil is not at the bottom of it ? I 
think he often is. And even supposing, as 3 
persons do. that what is said of Satan coming 
with the sons of God, &c., is merely a figurative 
representation, it is certainly designed to teach 
us the existence of the Evil One, and his ag 
in our temptations and troubles. There are oth- 
er passages of Holy Writ, which express the same 
truth in a similar way. Zechariah saw in his 
vision, (3: 1.) u Joshua, the high priest, standing 
before the angel of the Lord/' that is Christ. 
" and Satan standing at his right hand ,' : where 
the accuser always stood in the Jewish court. 
The apostle John heard a loud voice, saying in 
heaven. k ' ; Xow is come salvation, and 
and the kingdom of our God. and the power of 
his Christ, for the accuser of ov 
down, who accused them before our God, day and 

But granting that all these passages are figur- 
ative, though I think there is more reality about 
them than is generally supposed, what will you 
do with those places in which the devil : ; 
be a liar, a murderer, and the like? In thi 
are told by an apostle, the children of God are 
manifest, and the children of the devil. Is the 
devil a mere abstraction, a personification ? 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 181 

then may not God be also ? And it may be 
shown to be, just as logically, and in the same 
way that the devil can be. Take this passage in 
the third chapter of Habakkuk: 

" God came from Teman, and the Holy One 
from mount Paran. His glory covered the heav- 
ens, and the earth was full of his praise. And 
his brightness was as the light ; he had horns 
coming out of his hand ; and there was the hiding 
of his power. Before him went the pestilence, 
and burning coals went forth at his feet. He 
stood and measured the earth : he beheld, and 
drove asunder the nations : and the everlasting 
mountains were scattered, the perpetual hills did 
bow." 

Now there is much more reason to say that 
this passage is allegorical, than the one in Job. 
It occurs in a highly wrought poetical book, with 
not a single historical statement in it ; nothing at all 
resembling the staid and quiet narrative of Job's 
life and employments. The language is evidently 
figurative ; the transaction never could have 
actually taken place. Why may I not say that 
the word of God is a mere personification ; that 
wherever it occurs, and in whatever way it is 
used, it is never to be understood as designating 
any really existing being. 

What folly to reason thus, if indeed it can be 
called reasoning. And why are they guilty of 



who kept not their 
hath 
adesp darl: 
unto the 

I nor the 

devil certainty 

of fu be the 

and 30 in and re- 

under the ya- 
: 

they 

1 

m the 
readiest to tak ild and foolish de- 

fc] 

:\nd women of 

to do 
with iui the direst 

lead* 7 
ing -chool-boy 



the lord's prayer. 183 

compositions. So true is it, that infidelity nat- 
urally leads to superstition. 

But suppose there really is such a being, is 
there any reason why we should pray to be de- 
livered from him ? Is he anything more than a 
bugbear to frighten naughty children with? 
Yes, my brother, he is your enemy and mine. 
Our Lord tells us expressly, that the enemy is 
the devil. The apostle Peter calls him our ad- 
versary, the devil. The word Satan, by which nam e 
he is often designated, means an adversary. He 
is called in the Eevelation of John, the accuser 
of the brethren. He is everywhere represented 
as opposed to us, seeking our ruin. He first se- 
duced us to the foul revolt, and ever since he has 
labored for our destruction. Many professed 
Christians have no real, hearty belief that 
the devil is their enemy. I can remember 
distinctly when the conviction first forced itself 
upon me that he hated me, — that he watched for 
my halting, and when I faltered, obscure and un- 
known though I was, he and his followers raised 
a shout of triumph. Now this is not a fiction, a 
figure of speech, it is a reality ; and he who does 
not feel it to be so, is not aware of one of his 
greatest dangers. And this is but a fulfillment 
of the oldest prophecy on record. u I will put 
enmity between thee," said God to the infernal 
serpent, " and the woman, and between thy seed 



184 SERMONS ON 

and her seed." We are the seed, the spiritual 
children of him who is to bruise the serpent's 
head. We must expect to be assaulted by the 
serpent in turn. 

And he is not an enemy to be despised. He 
was once a mighty angel, in the presence of God, 
and he is still powerful. 

His form has not yet lost 
All its original brightness, nor appears 
Less than archangel ruined, and the excess 
Of glory obscured ; as when the sun ; new risen, 

Looks through the horizontal misty air, 
Shorn of his beams. 

Darkened so, yet shines the fallen archangel. 
He is called in the Scriptures the Prince of the 
"power of the air ; and this is a Hebraism for the 
powerful prince or ruler of the air. In other 
passages he is said to be the god of this world ; 
thus teaching us his power. There are also in 
the world evil spirits ; and though the word of 
God reveals nothing definite in regard to their 
number, their names, and their employment, 
and we venture on dangerous ground, when we 
dogmatize on these points ; yet we are expressly 
exhorted to put on the whole armor of God, be- 
cause we wrestle not against flesh and blood, that 
is, with mere earthly enemies ; but against prin- 
cipalities, against powers, against the rulers of 
the darkness of this world, against spiritual wick- 



the lord's prayer. 185 

edness in high places, or, as some translate it, 
against wicked spirits on high ; this last expres- 
sion corresponding to the phrase, the prince of the . 
power of the air. I do not think it idle or su- 
perstitious to repeat the warning. The caution 
has not grown obsolete. Such foes are in our 
midst, and, for aught I know, millions of these 
spiritual wickednesses walk the earth, or when we 
wake, or when we sleep. They are said to be the 
angels, the messengers of that Evil One, from 
whom our Lord teaches us to pray to be delivered. 
He is called their prince. He can station them 
where he will, to watch and waylay us. Shall we 
not, then, call upon God for protection ? 

The devil is a bold enemy. He disputed with 
Michael about the body of Moses, that chosen 
servant of God. In his vision in the Isle of Pat- 
mos, the beloved disciple saw him and his angels 
fighting in heaven itself, with Michael and his 
angels. And though these passages are obscure 
and mysterious, still they show the boldness of 
our enemy. We do know that he crept into the 
paradise of God, and tempted the mother of all 
living. He had the presumption to venture into 
the presence of Jehovah, and to accuse the up- 
right Job of serving God from selfish and hypo- 
critical motives. And above all other instances 
of his audacity, he assaulted our Lord, who was 
holy, harmless, and undefiled. He would have 

M 



186 SERMOiNS ON 

had liinij who is the brightness of the Father's 
glory, and the express image of his person, who 
sits at the right hand of God, to fall down and 
worship the dethroned and faded spirit who 
dwells in the blackness of darkness forever. 
Shall we hope to escape ? Do you think you can 
daunt such a bold, sagacious enemy, by assuming 
an air of defiance, and by asserting, with school- 
boy bravery, that you are not afraid ? Can you 
flatter yourself that you are so pure and virtuous 
that Satan, feeling ho w awful, simple goodness is, 
will not venture to tempt you ? And do not 
think that these are idle questions. Multitudes 
have had this self-confidence, and have been ruined 
by it. I warn you against it. You must resist 
the devil, if you would have him flee from you. 
Remember that he tempted our Lord, that angels 
fell by him, and pray to God to deliver you from 
him. 

The devil is a subtle and crafty enemy. We 
are told of his wiles and devices. We are fore- 
warned lest we fall into his snare. We are told 
that he transforms himself into an angel of light ; 
that his coming is with all power, and signs, and 
lying wonders. Good old Matthew Henry says, 
he is called a serpent for subtlety ; an old ser- 
pent, experienced in the art and trade of trap- 
ping. Paul bids us beware, "lest by any 
means, as Satan beguiled Eve through his subtle- 



the lord's prayer. 187 

ty, so our minds should be corrupted from the 
simplicity that is in Christ. And it is not alone 
the Christian that he attacks. He blinds the 
minds of them who believe not : lest the light of 
the glorious Gospel should shine unto them. 
When men hear the Gospel, then cometh the 
devil and taketh away the word out of their 
hearts ; lest they should believe and be saved. 
And thus they are taken captive of him at his 
will. Do any of you, whether religious or irreli- 
gious, suppose that you can yourselves circum- 
vent or elude this crafty foe ? Ah ! you do not 
know " the depths of Satan." The gayest, most 
attractive places you see, are often the snares and 
pitfalls he has prepared for you. The sweetest 
music, the softest tones you hear, are often the 
syren song with which he would lull you to sleep, 
that he may rob you of your soul. 

The devil is a savage, bitter enemy. He goes 
about like a roaring lion, seeking whom he may 
devour. He is a serpent, venomous, spiteful and 
hateful. He is an unscrupulous enemy. Our 
earthly foes may revolt from some modes of war- 
fare, but there is nothing which the devil is not 
mean enough and base enough to do. He is a 
liar and a murderer, from the beginning. He is 
a slanderer: witness what he said of Job. In 
some parts of our version of the New Testament, 
the same word is at one time translated the devil, 



18S SERMONS ON 

and at another, slanderer. The latter is the orig- 
inal meaning, but it was so appropriate to our 
great enemy, that it came to he used as his prop- 
er name. Indeed, in the hook of Revelation, he 
is expressly called, by those who are in heaven, 
the accuser of our brethren, who accuses them be- 
fore God, day and night! There are those in ev- 
ery community who are constantly, day and night, 
hunting up and repeating stories of the knavery 
and hypocrisy of ministers and professors of reli- 
gion ; insinuating, or broadly assorting, that their 
piety is but a cloak for their profligacy and dis- 
honesty. 

Do these men know who they are imitating, — 
of what lineage they come ? Our Savior said to 
just such false accusers, " ye are of your father 
the devil, and the lusts of your father ye will 
do. 5 ' My friend, if you must be in the employ- 
ment of the Evil One, do not, I beg you, do his 
dirty work. Do not let him use you to spatter 
filth on those who are trying to live godly in 
Christ Jesus. 

I have intimated that some men are in the em- 
ploy of the adversary. Harsh as it may seem, 
this must be applied to every one who is not a 
servant of Christ. Our Lord tells us there is 
no neutral ground ; he that is not for me, is 
against me. And yet, though he employs you, 
my impenitent friend, he is your enemy s'ill ; he 



the lord's prayer. 189 

gives you only the wages of sin, which is death. He 
does not now assume an attitude of opposition. 
He gives you "the pleasures of sin for a season," 
hut it is only for a season. He acts like a gam- 
bler or seducer. He toys with you as they do 
with their victims, that he may get you under his 
power. When he has rifled you of all you hold 
dear, he will turn you out to everlasting shame 
and contempt ; as his prime ministers on earth 
are doing with their victims every hour. 

If you had such an earthly enemy as I have 
described, bold, wary, vindictive, powerful and 
unscrupulous, would you not dread him, and seek 
to be delivered from him ? Is Satan any the 
less to be avoided, because he is a spiritual foe,— 
because himself unseen, he wars against your un- 
seen and eternal interests ? Ah ! if he had not 
already blinded your mind, you would seek to re- 
cover yourself out of his snare. 

My Christian friends, while all this will seem 
to the irreligious and the giddy a fable or a delu- 
sion, to you it is, I am persuaded, a sad reality. 
The devil hates us as he hated our Master, be- 
cause we are not of this world, and he shows his 
spite against us. He fills our minds with evil 
thoughts. He dresses up sin in an attractive 
garb. He excites unreasonable and wicked men 
to insult and provoke us. Let us not underrate 
this enemy. There is often, among Christians, a 



190 SERMONS ON 

light and easy way of speaking of our adversary, 
which is very improper. Not that I think the 
devil ought to be treated with any reverence. 
Some good people seem to have the same scru- 
pulous respect for him that they have for the Al- 
mighty. They think it as great an evidence of 
a wicked heart for a man to speak thoughtlessly 
of the devil, as to blaspheme that glorious and 
fearful name of the Lord our God. But. on the 
contrary, it is comparatively the most guiltless 
kind of profanity, if, indeed, it can be called a 
profanation. I feel as free to speak of the devil 
as of a wicked man, and I do not think any more 
regard should be paid to him. But beware of 
acting and talking as if there were no such being, 
countenancing the popular idea that the belief in 
his existence is an exploded superstition of the 
middle ages. That, " in this enlightened age," 
we have nothing to fear from him, and that no- 
body but nursery-maids and bigots believe there 
is any such creature. 

No, my brother, it is still as true now as it was 
in the days of the apostle, that your adversary, 
the devil, goeth about like a roaring lion. You 
must resist him steadfast, in the faith. You 
must put on the whole armor of God, and fight 
manfully the good fight of faith. You are, above 
all, to take the shield of faith, that is of trust in 
God. You are to rely upon him, praying always 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. 191 

with all prayer and supplication. All these pas- 
sages show you that all your safety is to be in 
praying this prayer : Deliver us from the Evil 
One. 

u Man's wisdom is to find. 

His strength in God alone ; 
And an angel would be weak, 

Who trusted in his own." 



SERMON IX. 



For thine is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory 
forever. Amen. — Matt. 6 : 13. 

This conclusion contains the reason why we 
should ask of God what we need, and why he 
should give us what we seek. It shows the pro- 
priety of our coming to him, and of our coming 
to him with just such requests. In the first place, 
the kingdom, the authority, belongs to him. lie 
is a Sovereign ; none can stay his hand, or say unto 
him, what doest thou ? Every page of the Bible 
contains this truth, either expressed or implied. 
" The Lord hath prepared his throne in the heav- 
ens/ 1 says the Psalmist, " and his kingdom ruleth 
over all."* " The Most High ruleth in the kingdom 
of men, and giveth it to whomsoever he will. 
And all the inhabitants of the earth are reputed 
as nothing, and he doeth according to his will in 
the army of heaven, and among the children of 
men.."f " Shall I not do what I will with mine 
own. J u He hath mercy on whom he will have 
mercy, and whom he will, he hardeneth."§ And 
even those who attempt to evade the force of 
these plain declarations by subtle arguments, 

* Ps. 103 : 19. f Dan. 4 : 17. J Matt. 20 : 15. § Rom. 9 : 18. 



the lord's prayer. 193 

and acute criticism, when they come to pray, ad- 
dress our Heavenly Father as a sovereign. They 
do not ask him to help them to get what they 
need, but they entreat him to give it to them; 
thus recognizing him as the giver of every good 
and perfect gift ; the God in whose hands our 
breath is, and whose are all our ways. So you 
see that in our devotions, both reason and con- 
science respond to the truth of this great doctrine, 
so plainly revealed in the word of God. Indeed, 
it is only on the basis of this doctrine, that there 
is any place for such prayers as every pious heart 
offers, and feels compelled to offer to God. If 
he is not a Sovereign, if he does not do what he 
will in the army of heaven, and among the chil- 
dren of men, why should I ask him for anything 
with such an unconditional submission to his will, 
when my dependence upon him for it is only re- 
mote and indirect, if, indeed, there is any such 
dependence at all % 

Surely, those Christians, who in words deny and 
argue against God's sovereignty, (and by this I 
mean his most holy, wise, and powerful govern- 
ing of all his creatures, and all their actions,) 
surely, cannot know to what their reasoning 
necessarily leads. Hear the language of one, 
who, denying this doctrine, and not having any 
piety to keep him from being consistent, has 
dared to follow out this denial to its legitimate 



194 SERMONS ON 

results. u In what prayers do inen allow them- 
selves. That which they call a holy office, is not 
so much as brave and manly. Prayer looks 
abroad, and asks for some foreign aid to come, 
through some foreign virtue, and loses itself in 
endless mazes, of natural, and supernatural, and 
mediatorial, and miraculous. Prayer, as a means 
to effect a private end, is theft and meanness. It 
supposes dualism, and not unity in nature and 
consciousness. As soon as the man is one with 
God, he will not beg." And again he says, 
" Mens' prayers are a disease of the will."* 

I know that many, who dispute God's sovereign- 
ty, will shrink with horror from such blasphemous 
sentiments. And I am far from supposing that 
the pantheism of the expressions I have quoted, 
is a legitimate deduction from these principles ; 
but I think the denial of the usefulness of prayer 
is. I see no other stopping-place, when once 
you refuse to acknowledge that his kingdom ruleth 
over all. 

We hear much in our country about popular 
sovereignty. Now this is all well enough, if we 
do not mean thereby to dispute the sovereignty 
of God, or to endorse that vicious and blasphe- 
mous saying, " the voice of the people is the 
voice of God," thus enthroning the multitude, 



'■ R, W. Emerson, 



the lord's prayer. 195 

the majority, in the place of God. He who 
denies that there is any law higher than the 
constitution or other supreme law of the land, 
puts into the hands of the constituted authorities, 
the power to obliterate the eternal distinction be- 
tween right and wrong. He opens the door for the 
most unlimited despotism. He denies the sacred 
right of revolution. Especially in a republican 
government, where the will of the majority makes 
and alters constitutions and laws, is there no other 
reliance for the safety of the minority, and the in- 
dividual, except this much abused, much misunder- 
stood doctrine of a higher law, this great truth 
that God alone is a sovereign in his own right, — 
that the sovereignty, even of the people, is but a 
delegated sovereignty, and .to be exercised only 
within certain limits ; and that when it transgress- 
es these limits, our allegiance to God should ab- 
sorb every other feeling, should break every other 
tie. 

And lest it should be said that this authorizes 
every one to nullify any and every law of the 
state, at his own caprice, I would remind you 
that this very higher law itself, binds us to be sub- 
ject to the powers that be, because they are or- 
dained of God. And when any one refuses obe- 
dience to the law of the state, he must prove 
from the same law, which enjoins obedience in all 
ordinary cases, that there is a conflict between the 



196 SERMONS OX 

two. And he must show this from some plain, 
explicit declaration of the word of God, or by 
just and necessary consequence therefrom. 

The law of God will take nothing in the place 
of this ; no whim, no petulant opposition, no in- 
ward light. How admirably does this great 
truth of God's sovereignty guard us from the op- 
pression of the majority on the one hand, and the 
rebellion of the minority on the other. 

A second reason why we should pray to God 
is, that he has the power. He is not a Sovereign 
merely in name, with the external pomp of roy- 
alty, overshadowed by a power behind the throne, 
and above the throne itself. We do not go to 
God as men do to an earthly monarch, to be re- 
ferred to the administrators of his government, 
to see if what we request is in harmony with their 
plans. Nor do we approach him as a mere matter 
of ceremony, to obtain his formal consent to that 
which has already been granted us. He has nev- 
er delegated his power to angels or saints, or the 
Virgin Mary. He has not imprisoned himself in 
blind, impersonal laws. If he had, we ought to pray 
to them. As it is, we ought to go directly to 
God. When Ferdinand de Soto was traversing 
the shores of the Gulf of Mexico in search of the 
fabled fountain of immortal youth, the Indians 
besought him to give them rain. His repty, 
coming from one who had been brought up amid 



the lord's prayer. 197 

the darkness of Spanish Romanism, is worthy to 
he written in letters of gold : " Pray only to 
God, for the things you need." 

And God has the power to give us just what 
we ask of him. He is not hampered by what 
are called laws of nature, or natural laws. It is 
not necessary that he should violate these, in or- 
der to grant our requests. He can act in ac- 
cordance with, and by means of them, and this is 
all we ask him to do. 

We would not, if we could, have the regular 
order of events ever and anon disturbed, in order 
to benefit us, or to gratify our caprice. This 
would render our existence an intolerable burden. 
It is only on the ground of the permanence of 
these so called laws of nature, on the principle 
that like causes produce like effects, that we can 
judge of the future by the past, so as to avoid 
danger, or lay our plans with any hopes of suc- 
cess. God has, therefore, in great mercy, so or- 
dered matters, that the chain of causes and effects 
which comes within the range of our observation, 
is invariable within certain limits ; so much so, 
that when we see one event, we can safely infer 
that a certain other event will surely follow it. 
Rut above and beyond the causes which we see, 
there are others, of which these we see are but the 
effects. Now it is among, and by means of these 
hidden and higher cause?, that wc wish and ex- 



198 SERMONS ON 

pect the Almighty to operate, so as to grant us 
our requests, while at the same time he leaves us 
a sure basis for action and reasoning, by not suf- 
fering our experience to be contradicted or inter- 
rupted. 

But let the great apostle of this doctrine, Dr. 
Chalmers, speak for himself: " Instead of treat- 
ing it as a general argument," he says, " let us 
take some individual examples. When the sigh- 
ing of the midnight storm sends a fearful agita- 
tion into the mother's heart, as she thinks of her 
sailor-boy, tossed on the tempestuous deep, the 
advocates of a hard and inflexible constancy in 
nature would forbid her to pray. According to 
them, prayer to G-od, who holds the elements in 
his hand, is as useless as to the elements them- 
selves. Yet nature strongly prompts her aspira- 
tions for the safety of her boy, and, if our argu- 
ment be true, there is nothing in science to re- 
press them. God can answer her, not by inter- 
fering with second causes, or reversing the changes 
of the heaving atmosphere; but by a touch of 
his hand amid the deep recesses of meteorol- 
ogy. Thus he might bid the elements into si- 
lence. A virtue passes out of him, which passes 
onward from the invisible to the visible." 

It would help to clear away the mist in which 
this whole subject is involved, if men only had a 
clear idea of what a law of nature really is. We 



the lord's prayer. 199 

may say of this idol of modern skeptics, what 
Paul did of those of the ancient heathen : " We 
know that it is nothing in the world." A natural 
law is a mere statement of the order which we 
have observed in the succession of events. For 
instance, you say that it is a law of motion, that 
action and reaction are equal. What more do 
you mean by this, than that it is universally 
true, that the action of one body upon another is 
always succeeded by an equal reaction % What 
more do you know of the efficient cause of this 
succession, than he who never heard of this law? 
The only advantage you have of him is, that 
when you see one body come in contact with an- 
other, he may discover that in that specific case, 
action and reaction are equal. But you know 
that it is always so, and you can take advantage 
of this general principle to avoid danger, or to 
accomplish what you desire. But as to what 
makes it so, you are both equally ignorant. 

Take another illustration, for men are slow to 
learn that in their investigation of natural laws, 
they do not discover a single really efficient cause, 
but simply establish, or rather ascertain, an inva- 
riable order of events. I see an apple fall to the 
ground. I ask you why it does this, instead of 
moving in the opposite direction, or floating 
around in the air ? You say, the earth attracts 
it. Is this anything more than merely repeating 



200 SERMONS ON 

that it actually does move toward and to the 
earth. I ask you what makes the earth attract 
it, and you say it is the law of gravitation that 
makes it. What is this law of gravitation but a 
simple statement of what has been proven to be 
universally true, " that all matter in the universe 
tends toward all other matter." Do I know any 
more why the apple falls to the ground after I 
have been informed that this single instance is 
but a specimen of what is going on constantly 
all over the universe, than I did before ? These 
laws of nature, which men idolize, are only the 
uniform modes in which God ordinarily exercises 
his power. If he saw fit, he could act on an en- 
tirely different method, as he has done occasion- 
ally. But he has seen fit, in his wisdom and 
kindness, so to conduct the affairs of the world, 
that we know, as men say, what we can depend 
upon. It would be a sad affair if we did not. 
In ow I say again, that we who pray to God, do not 
ask him to interrupt this regular, orderly succession 
of events. We think he can answer our prayers 
without doing that, though we have no doubt, if 
the occasion demanded it, he could, and would, 
vary from his ordinary method of governing the 
world. 

I have, as you will remember, repeatedly 
called 3'our attention to the sound philosophy of 
this prayer. It may not be out of place to remark 



THE LORD'S PRAYER. • 201 

here, that the whole word of God, while it does 
not, and was not intended to, give direct instruc- 
tion upon any subject hut religion, yet its teach- 
ings are based upon, and harmonize with, the 
deductions of a correct mental science, and, in- 
deed, of all science. That is to say, it does not 
tell what sort of a being man is ; it does not go 
into any analogies of the powers and affections of 
his mind. But in all it says, to or of him, it 
goes .upon the supposition that he has just such 
faculties, and it is adapted to a being possessing 
just such faculties, as we know man to be actual- 
ly endowed with; thus showing that, like the 
Sabbath, it was made for man. And so, though 
a correct philosophy is not directly inculcated in 
the word of God, it is always involved in its 
teachings. 

Even here, in this conclusion of the Lord's 
prayer, there lurks a great metaphysical truth, to 
which every profound thinker has set the seal of 
his approbation. They tell us that power is an 
attribute of the mind. And though we some- 
times ascribe it to inanimate matter, that this is 
but a mere figure of speech. We speak of the 
power of the wind or the sun, but this dead, life- 
less matter, is merely the instrument of some 
mind. 

We are not, on this account, to abandon the 
use of such phrases, any more than we are to stop 



202 SERMONS ON 

saying that anything made a deep impression on 
our mind, or that a new idea struck us. But we 
a:v not to be deceived by these expressions. We 
are to remember that whenever we see power, 
there is evidence of the presence of mind. 

This may seem absurd to some of you, but it 
is the received doctrine among metaphysicians, 
and I will show you that it has the endorsement 
of one whom you will confess to be a man of 
sound practical wisdom. Dr. Xoah Webster, in 
unition of the word power, says '-the exer- 
tion of power proceeds from the will; and in 
strictness, no being, destitute of will or intelli- 
-, can exert power.'" See, now, how this 
idle, empt? etion comes in to second the 

■dungs of our Lord. 

There is nothing in this prayer at which men 
e world would be so inclined to sneer, as at 
the idea of asking God for daily food. Why, 
they say, the wind, and the sun, and the rain, 
these great natural agencies, will ripen your grain 
Z)r you ; you need not trouble the Almighty 
about it. But philosophy rises up and says, the 
wind, and the sun, an d the rain are mere lifeless mat- 
ter ; they can only be the instrument of some 
mind. The Bible tells us who that mind is ; it 
is God, who gives us all things richly to enjoy. 
He makes the sun rise, he sends rain, he holds 
the winds in his hand. How proper that we 



the lord's phayer. 203 

should say, " Give us this day our daily bread, 
for thine is the power.' 7 

But man has will and intelligence, therefore 
we may properly speak of his power. Yet man 
is evidently a limited, dependent being ; his 
power must be derived from some higher source. 
This is what mental philosophy teaches. Need I 
ask you how this accords with what the Bible 
says of God's power? God hath spoken once, 
says the Psalmist : twice have I heard this, that 
power belongeth unto God. That is, he is the 
only being who has underived power ; and he is, 
therefore, the fountain of all power. 

When Pilate told our Lord, " Knowest thou 
not that I have power to crucify thee, and have 
power to release thee," our Lord answered with 
philosophical accuracy, if I may use such an ex- 
pression, a Thou couldest have no power at all 
against me, except it were given to thee from 
above." We here ask God to do for us, and for 
our fellow men, what we are ourselves to do ; such 
as hallowing his name, doing his will, &c, because 
our strength to do these, in the most comprehen- 
sive use of the phrase, must be derived from him. 
Especially, (and I would not, in the general truth, 
lose sight of this particular phase of it.) must a 
disposition to do these things, which is an essen- 
tial element of our power, be born, not of the 
will of man, but of God. What a motive to in- 



204 SERMONS ON 

duce us to ask our Father, who seeth in secret, is 
this blessed truth, that all power in heaven and 
earth is in his hands. 

The last reason given here why God should 
hear our prayer is, that it will be for his glory. 
This has always been a favorite plea with the 
obedient children of our Heavenly Father. 
" What shall I say, when Israel turneth their 
backs," said Joshua, when they had been routed 
bv their enemies, < : for the Canaanites. and all the 
inhabitants of the land, shall hear of it, and shall 
environ us round, and cut off our name from the 
earth, and what wilt thou do unto thy great name ? ;1 
" For thy name's sake," said the Psalmist. i: pardon 
mine iniquity." And again, u For thy name's 
sake, lead and guide me." 

Even our Savior prayed, " Father, glorify thy 
Son, that thy Son also may glorify thee." This 
is the great plea which we should urge before our 
Heavenly Father, why he should answer our re- 
quest. He tells us expressly, " them that honor 
me, Twill honor;" and he declares he will not 
give his glory to another. 

If, then, you would have your prayers answered, 
you must plead with God to hear you for his own 
name's sake. And in order that this plea may 
be acceptable and available, it should be the great 
motive which iDduces us to ask such things of our 
Father in Heaven. Whether we eat or drink, or 



the lord's prayer. 205 

whatever we do, we are to do all for the glory of 
God. 

If, then, we pray for daily food, for life and 
h ealth, it should be that we may glorify God. We 
should say with the Psalmist, < l Form death 
there is no remembrance of thee, in the grave, 
who shall give thee thanks V If we ask to be 
forgiven, our great motive must not be our own 
safety, but that our salvation may be to the praise 
of the glory of God's grace. With David we 
must say, " There is forgiveness with thee, that 
thou mayest be feared ; that is, reverenced." And, 
" For thy name's sake, pardon my iniquity." If 
we pray that we may do the will of God as it is 
done in heaven, it should not be that men may 
call us honorable, but that seeing our good works, 
they may glorify our Father who is in Heaven. 
And so I might go on with ever} r petition, show- 
ing that the reason why we should ask, as well 
as why God should answer, is, that he may be glo- 
rified in us. 

We learn also from this doxology, that praise 
should always form a part of our worship. We 
may say that this prayer begins and ends in 
praise ; for the first petition, " Hallowed be thy 
name," may be viewed in the light of an ascrip- 
tion. The Bible is full of precepts and examples, 
which show that it is our duty thus to glorify 
God. a ! that men would praise the Lord for 



206 SERMONS ON 

Iiis goodness, and for his wonderful works to the 
children of men."— Ps. 107: 31. "Let us come 
before his presence with thanksgiving, and make 
a joyful noise unto him with psalms." — Ps. 95 : 
2. " By him, therefore, let us offer sacrifice and 
praise to Grod continually; that is, the fruit of 
our lips giving thanks to his name." — Heb. 13 : 
15. u Whoso offereth praise, glorifieth me." — 
Ps. 50: 23. The prayers of many good people 
are sadly deficient in this respect. They are full 
of giving thanks to him for all his mercies ; hum- 
ble confession of sin, both original and actual ; 
earnest supplication for the pardon of sin and 
peace with Grod, and for all temporal mercies that 
may be necessary ; and of intercession for others, 
including the whole world of mankind. 

But there is little "'adoring the glory and 
perfections of God, as they are made known to 
us in the works of creation, in the conduct of 
providence, and in the clear and full revelation 
he hath made of himself in his written word." 
Yet this should always be adverted to in our 
prayer, especially in public and family worship, 
and should be often made a prominent topic. 
The advantages of such a course are many. It 
impresses upon the worshipers a sense of the 

majesty of the being whom they address. It 
shows that he who leads their devotions, is aware 

what a solemn thing it is to address the King of 



THE LORDS PRAYER. 



207 



kings. And it is an important duty thus to 
praise and glorify our Father in Heaven. Many 
people suppose that all these ascriptions are 
to be confined to spiritual songs. But there are 
multitudes who never sing. Shall they never 
praise God with their own voices? Besides, 
many of our hymns and prayers, earnestly en- 
treat for some great blessing. These two de- 
partments of worship are separated by no well- 
defined limit. He who sings, as I have remarked 
in a previous discourse, should feel that that ex- 
ercise requires a devout spirit, and forbids all 
jesting and frivolity, equally with prayer. He 
who prays, should not come to God merely as a 
beggar, but as an adoring worshiper. Let your 
prayers often ascribe dominion, and power, and 
glory to our Father in Heaven. 

The word amen is from the Hebrew, and is 
either a form of acquiescence, as, u Let it be so ;" 
or, of aspiration, u May it be so." It may be 
considered as applicable to this doxology which 
we have just been considering, or to the whole 
prayer. As related to the former, it teaches us 
that we are not merely to believe that the king- 
dom, the power, and the glory are God's ; but 
we are to wish that they may be, and to rejoice 
that they are. When we pray to God, we ought 
not even to feel, — surely no one would dare to 
say, — '* Lord, thou canst do as thou wilt, for thou 






208 SERMONS ON 

art supreme : thou canst do what I ask of thee, 
for thou hast all power ; thou wilt get all the glo- 
ry, therefore thou oughtest to grant my requests. 
But if I could, I would help myself, and get all 
the honor to myself. I come to thee, because I 
am obliged to." No, the language of our hearts 
should be, K Let it be so. I am willing thou 
shouldst have the dominion, might, and honor. 
Nay, more, so would I have it. Oh, that it may 
be so." And why should it not be a source of 
joy to } t ou, that no one can control the Almighty, 
while he can do whatsoever he pleases ? Why 
should you be restive and unhappy, when you 
think of God's supreme dominion ? Why should 
you try to prove that he has not so much control 
over you, and your actions ? One would think 
that you ought to rejoice, that all power is in the 
hands of such a wise and merciful being. 

Can you think you would be happier, if left to 
your own short-sighted guidance, and impotent 
protection 1 Only have the Almighty for your 
friend, and you are safe. You may dwell at ease. 
You can say to every shadow o'er your path, 

c: Whatsoever thy name ma) T be 3 

Whithersoever thy coming tends 3 
Or if my pathway passes thee, 

Or at thy fated station ends, 
Thou knowest what ? tis thou bring'st to me 3 

f know who 'tis that send 



the lord's prayer. 209 

Instead of thinking this belief in God's sov- 
ereignty a creed of fear, it seems to me the only 
sure ground for the patience of hope. I say 
with the Psalmist, " Oh, Lord God of hosts, 
blessed is the man who trusteth in thee." 

It has never occurred to me that it was neces- 
sary to prove that God intends to have, and will 
have, ail the glory of everything he does for us. 
But there may be some doubters, and even cavillers 
here; and a few plain passages of Scripture will 
set the matter at rest. The apostle Paul, in 
speaking of God, says, not only that all things 
are by him, but that they are for him. We are 
told in another place, that the Lord hath made 
all things for himself. 

The Psalmist, in speaking of the deliverance 
of the ancient Israelites, says, the Lord saved 
them for his name's sake. 

Ezekiel, in speaking of the return of the Jews 
from the Babylonish captivity, represents the Al- 
mighty as saying, " I do not this for your sakes, 
O house of Israel, but for my holy name's sake, 
which ye have profaned among the heathen whith- 
er ye went." u Neither hath this man sinned," 
said our Lord of him who was born blind, " nor 
his parents ; but that the works of God might be 
manifest in him." And over and over again, in 
every variety of form, we are told that the sal- 
vation, of which all other deliverances are but the 



210 SERMONS ON 

type, and compared with which they are but as 
the setting to the precious stone, is of grace, that 
It may not be of works; that boasting may be 
excluded; that no flesh may glory in the presence 
of the Lord; that our adoption may be to the 
glory of his grace. I need add nothing to such 
declarations as these. 

Now it has always seemed to me more difficult 
for a large class of men to consent to let God 
have the glory, than anything else they are called 
on to do. A love of honor is not " the last in- 
firmity of noble minds" alone. All men are in- 
clined, more or less, to seek the honor that conies 
from man, and with some, this is the greatest ob- 
stacle to their salvation. You see so many who 
will not pray, because this is an implied acknowl- 
edgment of our entire dependence upon God, and 
that the glory of everything belongs to him. 
There are such multitudes who are hoping to be 
saved by their good works, who will not take sal- 
vation as a free gift, that God may be glorified ; 
who will not unite with the Church, because that 
Is a public, open recognition of the fact that God 
Is to have all the glory. Now if the Scriptures 
are true, and the word of God cannot lie, if rea- 
son, too, is not deceitful, you see that the power 
is all of God, and that, therefore, he ought to 
have the glory. Would you seek to deprive him 
of it % Shall a man rob God ? Will you not 



THE LORD'S PRAYER, 211 

render to him the glory due unto his name? 
Even if you cannot rejoice that it is so, can you 
not be honest enough to say it is just, it is right, 
let it be so ? And, Oh ! if you had but a glimpse 
of the infinite goodness and loveliness of our 
Heavenly Father, you would not only say, I am 
content, but you would rejoice and bless God, 
that the glory was to be his forevermore ; willing 
to be but a little unnoticed ray, in the effulgence 
that surrounds the throne of the Eternal. Is an 
affectionate child jealous and envious of the 
greatness his father has achieved, which reflects 
honor upon him ? Is he restive and dissatisfied 
when he sees that all he does, is ascribed to the 
judicious counsels and the careful training he has 
received from his parents. 

This is, I know, " to compare great things with 
small." But it is something like a representation 
of what our feelings toward our Heavenly Father 
should be. And when you love him with all 
your heart, it will be your greatest source of 
pleasure, that God is to have all the glory. Even 
here below, you will sing that song of the ran- 
somed, " blessing, and honor, and glory, and pow- 
er, be unto Him that sitteth upon the throne, and 
to the Lamb, forever and ever." And as you 
near the home of the blessed, and hear this song 
swelling up from the multitude whom no man 



212 SERMONS ONf 

can numb or, in the fullness of your soul you will 
cry out, Amen, and amen. 

This closing word may also be considered as 
applied to the whole prayer, thus deliberately re- 
affirming and setting our seal to all that we have 
said. It is thus we generally employ it, and it 
ought not to be used lightly and irreverently. 
There may be, and I presume there often are, 
prayers oiFerecl up, which are so faulty, that we 
would be constrained to dissent from them. Few 
prayers fall from the lips of uninspired men. ev- 
ery expression, every sentiment of which we could 
approve. But who cannot say amen to this 
prayer our Lord taught us ? Go read it, this sweet 
Sabbath morning, to the bloated drunkard, the 
trembliDg debauchee, the rude swearer, the fierce, 
quarrelsome man of violence. Let them give in 
their verdict. Will they not say, never man 
spake like this man? Take it around to every 
household in this place Are there any fathers or 
mothers, however wicked, who would refuse to 
have their children taught it ? If our Lord had 
brought us no other message but this prayer, that 
would have been a mission worthy of a teacher 
sent from G-od. Mother, teach your child this 
prayer. Though prayerloss yourself, let those 
whom God gives you, be accustomed, from their 
very infancy, to call him their Father in Heaven; 
to trust in and obey him as such. 



the lord's prayer. 213 

Such another talisman, in all time of peril and 
adversity, earth cannot afford. Whatever else 
you may give them, whatever else you may leave 
them when you die, bequeath to them this trust 
in God, for it is a pearl of great price, for joy 
whereof they might well sell all that they have 
and buy it. It is an anchor to the soul, both sure 
and steadfast, entering into that within the vail. 

My Christian friends, there are some of you, 
whose homes I fear are unblessed with the sacred 
influences of family worship. I pity you. Tell 
me, you who find so many excuses for neglecting 
this delightful duty, for refusing this unspeakable 
privilege, could you not learn this prayer our 
Lord left on record for us ? I knew a mother, a 
widow, with helpless little children, dependent 
upon her, who gathered her household band 
around her every day, and together they audibly 
repeated the Lord's prayer. I have heard them, 
and it seemed to me, that I stood in one of the 
sweetest and holiest spots on earth. Oh ! wid- 
owed mother, go thou and do likewise ; for if any 
children need the protection of this Heavenly 
Eather, it is such as yours. And what I say unto 
you, I say unto all, commend yourselves, and 
your loved ones, morning and night, to Him to 
whom the darkness and the light are both alike. 

I would not be guilty of any idolatrous rever- 
ence for the mere words of this prayer. But it 



214 SEPwMOXS ON 

comes home to me with an overpowering influence 
which I can never express, yet cannot conceal. 
Our Lord often prayed alone. What mortal 
shall ever dare to plead as did our Master then, 
when he poured out his soul with strong crying 
and tears 1 Inexpressibly dear as is his interces- 
sory prayer to every believer, much as I thank 
him for having prayed it, and left it on record, 
there are yet expressions in it which must not fall 
from merely human lips. But here is a prayer 
our Lord teaches us; it is fitted to us, to our 
weak, frail, blinded condition, at once brief and 
comprehensive. One may learn it in a few 
leisure moments, and yet within its narrow 
compass, it unfolds everything that we need, 
both for this life and that which is to come. 
Awful, yet at the same time tender ; for while it 
hallows God's name, and adores him as king, it 
yet calls him Father, and asks him for daily 
bread. So simple that a child can receive it, so 
profound that a philosopher, nay, an angel may 
lose himself in its depths. I love to repeat it. 
When I hear this prayer amid the solemn wor- 
ship of God, it seems to me a low sweet prelude 
of the music of heaven. Even snatches of it, 
sound upon my ear like the faint and far-rever- 
berations of that new song, which is ever singing 
in the presence of God. 

I know not how I can better conclude this se- 






the lord's prayer. 215 

ries of discourses, than by gathering up the frag- 
ments of this prayer, which we have been so long 
considering, and repeating them as one united 
whole; for standing alone in its simple, unap- 
proachable grandeur, it is its own highest eulogy. 
Our Father, which art in heaven, Hallowed be 
thy name. Thy kingdom come. Thy will be 
done in earth as it is in heaven. Give us this 
day our daily bread. And forgive us our debts, 
as we forgive our debtors. And lead us not into 
temptation, but deliver us from evil. For thine 
is the kingdom, and the power, and the glory,. 
forever. And let all the people say, Amen. 



ERRATA. 

The author not having had an opportunity of reading the 
proof sheets of this work, the following- corrections of the 
principal errors are here subjoined: 



Page 


18 4th line 


from bottom 


, for war read roar. 


Page 


22 10th do 


do 


top for 


on read in. 


Tage 


50 13th do 


do 


top omit far. 


Page 


56 2nd do 


do 


top foi 


St. Johns read St. John. 


Page 


56 2nd do 


do 


bottom, 


for may know, read knows. 


Page 


57 13th do 


do 


bottom 


, for falsely read fairly. 


Fa^e 


59 9th do 


do 


bottom. 


for *Therf is no shuffling 




there ; &c, r 


ead, 


'There is no shuffling- ; there &c. 


Page 


62 6th do 
confidently. 


do 


bottom 


, for confidentially, read 


Page 


64 10th "do 


do 


do 


for in, read as. 


Page 


64 6th do 
ciple. 


do 


do 


for principles read prin- 


Page 


66 10th do 


do 


do 


for foot, read forts. 


Page 


66 2nd do 
finement. 


do 


do 


for refinements, read re- 


Page 


67 6th do 
houses. 


do 


top 


f or outhouses, read ware- 


Page 


69 5th do 


do 


top 


for soldiery, read soldiers. 


Page 


69 6th do 


do 


top 


for stating, read staling. 


Page 


72 11th do 


do 


bottom 


forchterfullv. read chiefly. 


Page 


72 9th do 


do 


bottom for the, read this. 


Page 


75 10th do 


do 


top 


for waking, read working. 


Page 


77 3rd do 
the pleasures 


do 


top 


of the pleasure, read to 


Page 


79 10th do 
tions. 


do 


top 


for vocations read vexa- 


Page 


80 19th do 


do 


top 


for meekness, read weak 


Page 


ness.. 

83 3rd do 


do 


top 


for nestor, reid Nestor. 


Page 


85 7th do 


do 


top 


for phases, read phrases. 


Page 


G9 6th do 


do 


bottom 


omit *it is.' 


Page 


104 13th do 


do 


top 


for longs, read long. 


Page 


115 5th do 


do 


top 


corruption without and 



temptation within, read temptation without ami cor- 
ruption within. 
» Page 115 4th do do bottom for a, read the. 
Page 116 10th do do bottom, omit yourself. 
Page 118 2nd do do top for Tyranna. read T}'anna. 
Page 124 top af the page for helpless, read hopeless. 
Page 129 4th do do top for ministers read minister. 

Page 138 9th do do top many a person, read many 

persons. 
Page 142, 11th do do top omit 'jwbo rely upon your 

own morality. 



Page 144 10th do do bottom insert 'a,' before religious, 

Page 145 5th do do top omit. in. 

Page 147 14th do do top insert that' between so and 

they. 

Page 153 7th do do top read of, for in. 

Page 155 3rd do do bottom insert will, between who 

and mislead. 

Page 159 6th do do top for the read their. 

Page 159 4th do do bottom for evils, read evil. 

Page 176 1st do do top for these, read there. 

Page 181 6th do do bottom omit, of. 

Page 193 5th do d© bottom Omit surely. 

Page 194 11th do do for these, read their. 

Page 208 7th do do for o'er, read on. 



Deacidified using the Bookkeeper process. 
Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
Treatment Date: August 2005 

PreservationTechnologies 

A WORLD LEADER IN PAPER PRESERVATION 

1 1 1 Thomson Park Drive 
Cranberry Township, PA 16066 
(724)779-2111 



; i Hi! i I 



LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




014 627 769 A 



I 



mmmm , 



fi; 



